Page 155 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 155
cinematic road to a redefinition of the balkans
tive woman. However, the film was totally boycotted by the Belgrade audi-
ences, which could be taken as a symptom of difficulties in Serbian society
to come to terms with the troubling recent history of the Balkans. Never-
theless, this does not mean that Serbia, once the leading cinematography
in the framework of Yugoslav cinema, should be written off as an inter-
esting cinematography in the terms of world cinema. Ivana Kronja admits
that such authors, as prominent directors of the so-called Prague school
Goran Paskaljević (San zimske noći / A Midwinter Night’s Dream – 2004)
and Srđan Karanović (Sjaj u očima / Loving Glances – 2003) represent ex-
ceptions to what she found to be a rule in Serbian cinema. Although, I can-
not claim to be really well acquainted with Serbian cinema, I think there
are still some interesting products, which artistically and socially conform
to an open paradigm of world cinema with some emancipatory messages
or at least depictions of their cultural and political circumstances. An inter-
esting film by Aleksandar Davić Žurka (The Party – 2004) gives a complex
and frustrating take on the beginning of the war in Croatia in 1991 through
a story of a group of young people, who gather at a birthday party and lat-
er become affected by the war in various ways. An even better argument
for the future of Serbian cinema in the world could be found in some oth-
er products. Darko Lungulov‘s film Tamo i ovde (Here and There – 2009) in
the category of Serbian “urban films” literally opens Serbia up to the outer
world in a film, which takes place in New York and Belgrade and combines
two interlaced love stories with historical backgrounds, world views and
global–local relations. The manifestations of agencies, which move char-
acters between worlds, are depicted as the microsphere relationships oper-
ating many controversies with an impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Another socially and politically involved case is the film Parada (The Pa-
rade – 2011) by Srdjan Dragojević. The film confronts a still unforgiving at-
titude in Serbian political culture against gays and it builds its story around
the event of a gay pride parade in Belgrade. The film by the author, who is
otherwise known for his iconic war film Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village,
Pretty Flame – 1996), is one of the rare cases of a film with a surprisingly di-
rect enlightening political and social symbolic effect for the public.
Shifted Signifiers
Following from the hypotheses that the film A fost sau n-a fost? represents
a point of a kind of cinematic epistemological break with the paradigm of
national cinema, ample evidence can be found in many Balkan countries
153
tive woman. However, the film was totally boycotted by the Belgrade audi-
ences, which could be taken as a symptom of difficulties in Serbian society
to come to terms with the troubling recent history of the Balkans. Never-
theless, this does not mean that Serbia, once the leading cinematography
in the framework of Yugoslav cinema, should be written off as an inter-
esting cinematography in the terms of world cinema. Ivana Kronja admits
that such authors, as prominent directors of the so-called Prague school
Goran Paskaljević (San zimske noći / A Midwinter Night’s Dream – 2004)
and Srđan Karanović (Sjaj u očima / Loving Glances – 2003) represent ex-
ceptions to what she found to be a rule in Serbian cinema. Although, I can-
not claim to be really well acquainted with Serbian cinema, I think there
are still some interesting products, which artistically and socially conform
to an open paradigm of world cinema with some emancipatory messages
or at least depictions of their cultural and political circumstances. An inter-
esting film by Aleksandar Davić Žurka (The Party – 2004) gives a complex
and frustrating take on the beginning of the war in Croatia in 1991 through
a story of a group of young people, who gather at a birthday party and lat-
er become affected by the war in various ways. An even better argument
for the future of Serbian cinema in the world could be found in some oth-
er products. Darko Lungulov‘s film Tamo i ovde (Here and There – 2009) in
the category of Serbian “urban films” literally opens Serbia up to the outer
world in a film, which takes place in New York and Belgrade and combines
two interlaced love stories with historical backgrounds, world views and
global–local relations. The manifestations of agencies, which move char-
acters between worlds, are depicted as the microsphere relationships oper-
ating many controversies with an impact on the lives of ordinary people.
Another socially and politically involved case is the film Parada (The Pa-
rade – 2011) by Srdjan Dragojević. The film confronts a still unforgiving at-
titude in Serbian political culture against gays and it builds its story around
the event of a gay pride parade in Belgrade. The film by the author, who is
otherwise known for his iconic war film Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village,
Pretty Flame – 1996), is one of the rare cases of a film with a surprisingly di-
rect enlightening political and social symbolic effect for the public.
Shifted Signifiers
Following from the hypotheses that the film A fost sau n-a fost? represents
a point of a kind of cinematic epistemological break with the paradigm of
national cinema, ample evidence can be found in many Balkan countries
153
