Closer Croatia: Croatian Film Festival

Review at Empire Magazine

Croatian cinema took its time to come to terms with the realities of production without state subsidy. But, as the Riverside Studios's excellent Closer Croatia selection suggests, the independent industry has finally found its voice and is now capable of reflecting the changes of a turbulent decade with a wit and honesty that has garnered awards and acclaim in festivals around the world.

The eight features on view divide neatly into studies of young men struggling to respond to a shift in their circumstances and those willing to take a risk to improve the prospects of both themselves and their dependents.

The first film to be co-produced by all the former republics since the break-up of Yugoslavia, Rajko Grlic's Border Post harks back to the subversive satirical tone that underpinned so many assaults on socialist realism. Set in 1987 on the Macedonian frontier with Albania, the story turns on two instances of opportunism, as alcoholic Bosnian commander Emir Hadzihafizbegovic invents a diplomatic crisis with Tirana to seal off the post to prevent anyone from discovering that he's contracted syphilis, while Croatian medical student Toni Gojanovic exploits his access to the nearby town to secure Hadzihafizbegovic's medication by having an affair with his neglected wife, Verica Nedeska-Trajkova. Although laced with black comedy, the action also gives plenty of poignant hints about what is to come, with the recurring news broadcasts suggesting the passing of paternalistic Titoism and the rise of the ethnic supremacism of Slobodan Milosevic. But Grlic leaves us in no doubt about where the country is heading and why in a climax that's cruel, contrived and shatteringly indelible.

A libidinous soldier also proves key to the proceedings in Hrvoje Hribar's What Is a Man Without a Moustache?, as General Leon Lucev arrives in a sleepy backwater on manoeuvres and makes a play for widow Zrinka Cvitesic, who is devoted to his twin brother (also Lucev), who just happens to be the town's priest. Brimming with gentle humour, this warm ensemble piece occasionally veers off to follow the fortunes of shady businessman Ivo Gregurevic and his German-raised daughter, Jelena Lopatic, who finds an unexpected kindred spirit in eccentric eco-poet, Bojan Navojec. But it's Cvitesic's passion for Fr Lucev that most compels, as not only is he tempted by her forthright flirting, but he's also under pressure from his bishop to accept a missionary posting to Africa before he lapses back into alcoholism.

Kresimir Mikic experiences a very different crisis of conscience in Dalibor Matanic's I Love You. Having escaped the consequences of a hit-and-run accident by being bailed out by his lawyer father, the self-absorbed twentysomething discovers that he received contaminated blood in a transfusion and is now HIV+. However, he has so alienated his friends and workmates (many of whom are homophobic and ill-informed) that they're anything but sympathetic. So, he decides to infect strangers with the virus in a shockingly cynical display of furious self-pity and only realises the error of his ways when he makes emotional contact with Ivana Roscic, the compassionate barmaid at his local, who has begun advertising as a prostitute to support her young child. The denouement strays into melodrama, but this is a consistently discomforting film, in which Branko Linta's cinematography subtly reinforces both Mikic's misguided sense of superiority and the daunting estrangement that moulds contemporary urban society.

Rakan Rushaidat responds to the change in his circumstances with considerably more philanthropy in Antonio Nuic's unconventional road movie, All for Free. Previously content to idle away his life in the house he inherited from his parents, Rushaidat quits his sleepy Bosnian village after his three closest friends become murderously embroiled in a paternity suit. Purchasing a mobile snack bar, he embarks on a series of one-night stops around the countryside, where his refusal to charge for anything arouses the suspicions of locals who have learnt from the civil war that nothing ever comes so easily. However, a spanner is thrown into the works when Rushaidat becomes obsessed with Natasa Janjic, a perky shopgirl who continues to mourn the loss of her fiancée, even though she's virtually the prisoner of his sadistic brother, Emir Hadzihafizbegovic.

With its episodic sequence of quirky encounters, this metaphor for Bosnia's postwar ennui finds echo in the remaining four films, which similarly focus on characters striving to make the best of a losing hand.

The estimable Emir Hadzihafizbegovic returns in Ognjen Svilicic's Armin, as an impoverished Bosnian who travels to Zagreb with his 14 year-old, accordion-playing son in the hope of landing a role in a major movie. However, the diffident and unprepossessing Armin Omerovic-Muhedin fails to share his father's optimism and is more than willing to return home after the German producers fail to offer him an audition. But Hadzihafizbegovic is prepared to expend his savings and his persuasive charm to get the boy his chance, only for an epileptic fit to intervene and prompt an offer that allows the pair to regain their self-respect. Recalling both Vittorio De Sica's Bicycle Thieves (1948) and Luchino Visconti's Bellissima (1952), this is a well-meaning (if occasionally awkward) outsider study, whose great strengths are Hadzihafizbegovic's outstanding display of creeping despair and the notion that the miseries of Yugoslavia's bloody collapse are now the intellectual property of the appalled who watched from a safe distance.

The theme of facing up to responsibility recurs in Branko Schmidt's The Melon Route, in which traumatised war veteran and recovering junkie Kresimir Mikic finds himself caring for Mei Sun, the sole survivor of an illegal people trafficking operation that culminated in a boat-sinking tragedy. However, the fact that she is the sole witness to the incident places them both in jeopardy, especially as his cop uncle is reluctant to protect him from the wrath of pitiless crime boss, Emir Hadzihafizbegovic. Making atmospheric use of the Sava River and its woodland environs and reiterating many of the ideas espoused in Damjan Kozole's Spare Parts (2003), this works better as a study in the black economy than either a cross-cultural love story or a slow-burning thriller.

Ivo Gregurevic's shady dealings come unstuck in a less explosive, but more credible manner in veteran Tomislav Radic's What Iva Recorded on October 21st 2003, which was co-scripted by Armin director, Ognjen Svilicic. Determined to land a contract with parquet tycoon, Karl Menrad, Gregurevic invites the visiting German to step-daughter Masha Mati-Prodan's 15th birthday party. However, he soon becomes as irritated as wife Anja Sovagovic-Despot by Mati-Prodan's insistence on recording every second of the occasion on her new camcorder. Family secrets are soon tumbling out of the closet as uncle Boris Svrtan arrives with Barbara Prpic (the hooker that Gregurevic asked him to procure to sway Menrad's decision) and a culinary disaster forces the party to decamp to a downtown restaurant. With cinematographer Vedran Samanovic managing to prevent the handheld tactic from seeming too self-conscious, this is a hugely enjoyable, snowballing satire on the free-market economy and its corrupting influence on a nation still acclimatising to the absence of omniscient state surveillance.

This concept of life playing out under the gaze of an unseen force also informs Arsen A. Ostojic's monochrome triptych, A Wonderful Night in Split. Set on New Year's Eve, the interlocking vignettes centre on three couples whose destinies are shaped by a series of coincidences amidst the labyrinthine alleyways of the city's medieval quarter. Drug courier Mladen Vulic is planning on deserting lover Nives Ivankovic and her young son while making a delivery in Munich. However, he's double-crossed by dealer Marinko Prga, who not only sets up junkie Marija Skaricic with a date with suicidal American sailor Coolio, but also allows former addict Vicko Bilandzic to use a room overlooking the stage where singer Dino Dvornik is performing with his band to deflower his naive girlfriend, Ivana Roscic. Unwinding from an intriguing opening top shot to chronicle the events leading up to midnight, this is a supremely controlled technical exercise, whose ingenuity largely disguises the narrative's more obvious contrivances.

David Parkinson @ empireonline.com