Page 149 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 149
cinematic road to a redefinition of the balkans
deal today in the Balkans – that became even more “balkanised” after the
turmoil of the end of communism – with small cinematographies, which
for the most part, confirm the just mentioned hypotheses. This holds true
in the case of many feature films, which deconstruct the past, and in an in-
creasing number of feature films, which make use of genre codes or sim-
ply try to work on globalized topics. However, at the same time, the loca-
tion of the Balkans, its immeasurable cultural diversity, reach and in many
respects baffling violent history remains to be a ground for some singular
visualisations and dramatization in films by younger generations of film-
makers. A topic in its own right is, naturally, the war in 1990s in former Yu-
goslavia. Films, which are shot in the new states, which were involved in
those incomprehensible events, mostly concentrate on the traumas caused
by the war. They show individual tragedies, displacements, display absurd-
ity, loss and in some instances project stories of individuals’ and of the so-
cial reconstruction. However, even these films, partly due to the universal
awareness about the Yugoslav tragedy, are not just a local product for local
spectators; they also speak to world audiences.
Small Cinematographies, which became Parts of World Cinema
As much as it seems to be an open notion, the term “world cinema” is by no
means just a broad neutral category. There is a whole history of its significa-
tion, which I cannot enter into here. So let me just indicate why cinematog-
raphies of the Balkans in their more recent cases should be apprehended by
placing them in the context of what the term “world cinema” or Elsaesser‘s
formulation of the notion of the post-national cinema designate. According
to Andrej Šprah, most of “/…/ considerations of the concept are linked to
the basics of the notion, where we are dealing with balancing the relation-
ship between aesthetic and geopolitical aspects of the seventh art, or, very
simply, between film and the world” (Šprah, 2011: 91). More detailed defi-
nitions of the term “world cinema” point towards meanings as deciphered
by post-colonial theory and at least some aspects of such assessments of the
term could be linked to the Balkan small cinematographies. However, the
cinema of the Balkans went through at least two phases before it brought
to bear its special emphases to the notion of world cinema on conceptual-
ising efforts. Cinema of the countries of former Yugoslavia is especially il-
lustrative in this sense. Still at the beginning of the new millennium, that is
to say, before 2006, when A fost sau n-a fost was shot, there were clear indi-
cations that cinema of this area largely passed a phase of a specific invert-
147
deal today in the Balkans – that became even more “balkanised” after the
turmoil of the end of communism – with small cinematographies, which
for the most part, confirm the just mentioned hypotheses. This holds true
in the case of many feature films, which deconstruct the past, and in an in-
creasing number of feature films, which make use of genre codes or sim-
ply try to work on globalized topics. However, at the same time, the loca-
tion of the Balkans, its immeasurable cultural diversity, reach and in many
respects baffling violent history remains to be a ground for some singular
visualisations and dramatization in films by younger generations of film-
makers. A topic in its own right is, naturally, the war in 1990s in former Yu-
goslavia. Films, which are shot in the new states, which were involved in
those incomprehensible events, mostly concentrate on the traumas caused
by the war. They show individual tragedies, displacements, display absurd-
ity, loss and in some instances project stories of individuals’ and of the so-
cial reconstruction. However, even these films, partly due to the universal
awareness about the Yugoslav tragedy, are not just a local product for local
spectators; they also speak to world audiences.
Small Cinematographies, which became Parts of World Cinema
As much as it seems to be an open notion, the term “world cinema” is by no
means just a broad neutral category. There is a whole history of its significa-
tion, which I cannot enter into here. So let me just indicate why cinematog-
raphies of the Balkans in their more recent cases should be apprehended by
placing them in the context of what the term “world cinema” or Elsaesser‘s
formulation of the notion of the post-national cinema designate. According
to Andrej Šprah, most of “/…/ considerations of the concept are linked to
the basics of the notion, where we are dealing with balancing the relation-
ship between aesthetic and geopolitical aspects of the seventh art, or, very
simply, between film and the world” (Šprah, 2011: 91). More detailed defi-
nitions of the term “world cinema” point towards meanings as deciphered
by post-colonial theory and at least some aspects of such assessments of the
term could be linked to the Balkan small cinematographies. However, the
cinema of the Balkans went through at least two phases before it brought
to bear its special emphases to the notion of world cinema on conceptual-
ising efforts. Cinema of the countries of former Yugoslavia is especially il-
lustrative in this sense. Still at the beginning of the new millennium, that is
to say, before 2006, when A fost sau n-a fost was shot, there were clear indi-
cations that cinema of this area largely passed a phase of a specific invert-
147
