Can Cinema Replace "War-torn" as Croatia's International Legacy?

Most of us know the Balkans as an area that has been ravaged by years of war and instability. But with Lincoln Center’s new series, Beyond Boundaries: The Emergence of Croatian Cinema, perceptions of this area are bound to change. The films illustrate the climate of the region after the war and, despite the series’ focus on Croatian cinema, a few films are the result of cooperation between several Balkan countries. A number of the directors sat down with journalists recently to discuss their works, which range from classic to avant-garde.

Previously a part of the larger Yugoslav nation under communist rule, Croatia fought its war of independence in 1991. As such, pre-1991 films tend to focus on the effects of communism. Political satire is rampant, as is the influence of select American films.
Krsto Papic’s A Village Performance of Hamlet (1973) is a sharp satire on the corruption of the communist government, paralleled with the story of Hamlet. Papic brilliantly evokes a Western in the vein of John Ford with his own special flair, using close-ups and zoom-outs. The last several minutes of the movie are especially powerful and bring the film to an intense close. Although Papic’s arguably more famous breakout film Handcuffs is not being shown, Hamlet is equally important to understanding the political context of the work of one of Croatia’s most influential filmmakers.

Despite his recognition and respect from the film community, Papic is remarkably humble about his talent. “It was the product of a special situation,” he claims. “Dictatorship inspired those artists who wanted to get democracy one day. But it is an art and my films are careful to have no more politics than Shakespeare had in his plays.” It seems this attitude has carried over to the younger generations of filmmakers—in more recent films, war tends to play a background role to the characters.

Films made after 1991 tend to shift focus toward the relations between the various states of former Yugoslavia and the aftermath of war. In Dejan Sorak’s Two Players from the Bench (2005), the war is over, but the U.N.’s trials against war crimes are in session. Two men—a Serb and a Croatian—must work together to save a war hero. “The film is a paradigm of Balkan mentality. There are two different ways of thinking and it is difficult to capture,” says Sorak.

The performances by well-known Croatian actors Goran Navojec and Borko Peric are amusing and brilliant, and while the film’s satiric value is indisputable, Sorak’s ultimate themes are more significant—moving on after the war, putting aside prejudices, and attempting to work together. With proper exposure, it seems sure that it will aid Croatia’s influence on the film scene in the near future.

The most recent film at the series is Croatia’s official entry for the 2008 Academy Awards, Armin (2007), directed by the relatively young Ognjen Svilicic. The film is about a Bosnian boy, Armin, and his father, who travel to Zagreb to audition for a German film. Influenced by important minimalist directors like Jim Jarmusch and Robert Bresson, he concentrates on the developing relationship between father and son.

With little action and fairly sparse dialogue, Svilicic relies on the acting of amateurs Armin Omerovic and Emir Hadzihafizbegovic, leaving the audience more emotionally invested in the characters. “In moviemaking, the audiences go to films to know something about the characters—to create an emotional connection to characters. That’s what makes audiences cry,” says Svilicic. “You can make a movie about people suffering as a result of the event [the war], but not about the event.”

As a whole, the films seem to be more interested in people’s relationships with one another as a result of the war, rather than the war itself. The war acts as a canvas onto which they can paint their masterpieces. These men could care less about the relatively low income for people in the film business in Croatia. They are more interested in the respect of their audiences than Croatian critics. Positive international reception gives them the power to continue making films, which is all that they ask for. The 24 films in the series serve as a representation of what Croatian cinema has achieved in the past 50 years, and none of them should be missed.