Page 153 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 153
cinematic road to a redefinition of the balkans
youngest and internationalised hope of Slovenian cinema, is much differ-
ent character. His first film Tu pa tam (Here and There – 2004) was really
an extremely low budget hilarious movie, shot with a digital camera, about
four youngsters who get involved with mafia. The film shot by youngsters
for youngsters was transferred to the cinema format and it had huge local
success. Although Tu pa tam is understandably quite a naïve movie, it re-
flects broadly the social changes and positions of young people without a
clear perspective of life before them. After working on some television pro-
jects Okorn had difficulties to acquire sponsoring from the Slovenian Film
Fund, but he succeeded in Poland, where he shot a real genre film on the
topic of Christmas: Listy do M. (Letters to Santa – 2011). The style and ico-
nography as well as development of characters, multi-threaded narratives,
contribute to a full Hollywood-effect of this accomplished movie. Some so-
cial signifiers, which at least give a hint of injustices in the framework of
capitalist system, are recognisable in the manner of many films in the gen-
re of Hollywood type melodrama.
Croatia
“[…] the acceptance of Otherness, reconfiguration of national, gender, or
racial identity, and the subversion of limiting ideological and, most fre-
quently, patriarchal norms are all becoming necessities of the current post-
war period in the state of transition” (Vojković, 2008: 84). That is why, as
Saša Vojković adds in the same text, the Balkans are the area, where “/…/
the European identity is being negotiated, as well as possibilities of co-ex-
istence”. The Croatian cinema was much more decisively than the Sloveni-
an one touched by the appalling events in former Yugoslavia during 1990s,
which caused a stronger presence of war topics and traumas attached to
the war. Nevertheless, the same trends away from the paradigm of nation-
al cinema are detectible in Croatian cinema as well as elsewhere in the Bal-
kans. Some directors of the “old guard” can be found to be active with some
new films as, for instance, one of the big names of Croatian cinema Rajko
Grlić with the film Karaula (2006), financed by almost all former Yugo-
slav republics. The film about the bizarre events in a Yugoslav army’s out-
post at the Albanian border could be interpreted as a powerful allegory
of the reasons for the tragedy of the Balkan multi-ethnic state. However,
also in Croatia a new breed of directors (and, of course, scriptwriters, ac-
tor, etc.) makes its way in the direction of putting quite specific emphases
in the framework of the world cinema. Hrvoje Hribar was one such young-
151
youngest and internationalised hope of Slovenian cinema, is much differ-
ent character. His first film Tu pa tam (Here and There – 2004) was really
an extremely low budget hilarious movie, shot with a digital camera, about
four youngsters who get involved with mafia. The film shot by youngsters
for youngsters was transferred to the cinema format and it had huge local
success. Although Tu pa tam is understandably quite a naïve movie, it re-
flects broadly the social changes and positions of young people without a
clear perspective of life before them. After working on some television pro-
jects Okorn had difficulties to acquire sponsoring from the Slovenian Film
Fund, but he succeeded in Poland, where he shot a real genre film on the
topic of Christmas: Listy do M. (Letters to Santa – 2011). The style and ico-
nography as well as development of characters, multi-threaded narratives,
contribute to a full Hollywood-effect of this accomplished movie. Some so-
cial signifiers, which at least give a hint of injustices in the framework of
capitalist system, are recognisable in the manner of many films in the gen-
re of Hollywood type melodrama.
Croatia
“[…] the acceptance of Otherness, reconfiguration of national, gender, or
racial identity, and the subversion of limiting ideological and, most fre-
quently, patriarchal norms are all becoming necessities of the current post-
war period in the state of transition” (Vojković, 2008: 84). That is why, as
Saša Vojković adds in the same text, the Balkans are the area, where “/…/
the European identity is being negotiated, as well as possibilities of co-ex-
istence”. The Croatian cinema was much more decisively than the Sloveni-
an one touched by the appalling events in former Yugoslavia during 1990s,
which caused a stronger presence of war topics and traumas attached to
the war. Nevertheless, the same trends away from the paradigm of nation-
al cinema are detectible in Croatian cinema as well as elsewhere in the Bal-
kans. Some directors of the “old guard” can be found to be active with some
new films as, for instance, one of the big names of Croatian cinema Rajko
Grlić with the film Karaula (2006), financed by almost all former Yugo-
slav republics. The film about the bizarre events in a Yugoslav army’s out-
post at the Albanian border could be interpreted as a powerful allegory
of the reasons for the tragedy of the Balkan multi-ethnic state. However,
also in Croatia a new breed of directors (and, of course, scriptwriters, ac-
tor, etc.) makes its way in the direction of putting quite specific emphases
in the framework of the world cinema. Hrvoje Hribar was one such young-
151
