One of my aims in writing these intros is offer some back story on a film’s journey as an economic commodity, which I base solely on the research that I conduct. I never had any expectation that this would necessarily be an easy thing to accomplish. Here’s what I know so far about Ivan-Goran Vitez’s 2010 feature. According to Imdb.com, the film was shown at a Croatian film festival in the summer of 2010. According to the website cineuropa.org1 it had a release date of Nov. 19th later that same year. Whether or not it got released in theaters beyond Croatia, I couldn’t tell you. Among the 2 user reviews on IMDB, one of them tells the tale of a film that fell out of favor with the some of their financiers, who then pulled the funding for the project. This apparently left the film orphaned before it approached the theatrical film market, relegating it to a fate where it was just another film that entered and briefly exited the collective cultural landscape with little fanfare or impact.
One of the production companies that was involved in the project, Propeler Film, doesn’t even bother to list the film on their website2. Kinorama to their credit at least recognizes the film’s existence3. In fact Kinorama actually provides a great deal of information about the film which includes the 8 festivals it was screened at, alongside its ‘honors’ which included being named the best film of 2010 by some obscure Croatian film website. As for its home media distribution, a company called Continental Film released a Region 2 DVD. I don’t believe that there was any international distribution in this regard. According to worldcat.org the Continental release was being held at 5 libraries worldwide, with 3 copies to be found at university libraries within the US. If you live outside of Croatia, your best bet to obtain a DVD copy is to depend on random people selling it on eBay or other such sites.
Now you may be wondering to yourself, how did someone living in the middle of the United States manage to watch this? The answer to that question is … ‘online streaming’. Granted the film is not being streamed on any official site, but I probably don’t need to explain to anyone how the Internet truly works. Many years ago a person who was (and still is) a complete stranger to me posted a full length version of the film, with English subtitles, to YouTube. When I first ran across the video it had been up for more than 3 and a half years and the account that posted it had about 260 subscribers. I have no idea if the person who posted this had anything to do with the film’s production, but in this instance there’s no reason to look a gift horse in the mouth. I’ll be honest Croatia was going to be one of the more modestly difficult countries to deal with in terms of getting access to a qualified film, so naturally I decided to download the video from YouTube, and then proceeded to watch it as I normally would.
As for what I watched, it’s difficult to fathom what kind of film this was. Stylistically this film was all over the place. At times you were shown the textbook features of a standard horror-thriller movie and yet at other times the film appeared content with being a raunchy, juvenile farce. Not only that but in its aim for comedy, it depended a lot on the exaggerated mannerisms of its characters rather than on anything that might resemble witty repartee. This caused its divergent ambitions to conflict with each other in greater measure than they normally would. In fact I would argue that the humor the film managed to integrate within its more dramatic overtures was actually funnier, and had the film restrained its comedic intent to such devices, perhaps it wouldn’t have come across as so unfocused, haphazard and rudderless.
The inconsistency in its direction was even apparent in the general cinematography. Early in the film the camerawork employed some comically quick camera pans, which suggested a film that didn’t want to be taken too seriously. And yet for the majority of the film this artistic stamp was largely abandoned in deference to a more austere approach of short takes with minimal camera movement. The framing had its moments but overall was not particularly noteworthy. The one thing that did stand out for me was the mise-en-scène which occasionally would place certain characters hidden in the background of a shot, but the film did not rely on this practice too often. They also toyed a lot with the use of alternating focus within a shot, further establishing an aura of constantly shifting perspectives and intentions, making one feel as if nothing was truly clear or stable. If nothing else this fit nicely with the overall tone of the film which often would shift in a rather jarring way making it frustrating to watch. It’s as if the filmmakers wanted to add a little bit of everything and in the end threw in way too much, resulting in a bloated, overcooked effort.
What’s sad about this is that both the narrative concept and the resulting story were intriguing enough to support a really excellent film. I also found favor with the filmmakers’ commitment towards developing the characters. Granted this does lead to a rather slow, tedious beginning to the film, not to mention some lightweight melodramatic exchanges. This latter element of course created an even more perplexing puzzle in regard to the film’s true genre. But what did work for me was the innovative surprise twist employed during the flashback sequence which allowed the film to delve even deeper into the strained character dynamics that existed prior to the journey. The film generated additional allure from the corporate conspiracy angle in the story, which to me wasn’t developed enough. Had they put more energy into this element, the film could have been truly engrossing. Despite this the dialogue and overall writing were surprisingly good. It had some decent intelligence and could be engaging at times without being too contrived. Some of the best material was found in the exchanges between the Dutch leader and his interpreter, which really fleshed out the personalities of both in addition to establishing their awkward relationship.
As for the acting, it was a mixed bag containing both good and forgettable performances. In the latter category is Vilim Matula as Branko, a character who is essentially the droll office dork, a person whose mere presence annoys most of the people that he meets. It’s certainly not a fun character to play, but even then Matula performed the role in a rather flat, sterile manner. There was no energy or life in the lines that he delivered and his entire performance felt bland and perfunctory. Hana Hegedušić as Vesna, played Branko’s one true ally and given the friendly charm and naivety of the character, she had an opportunity to broaden the portrayal of Branko, which never quite materialized. Probably the only good thing you could state about either performance is that they gave the film a diverse set of personalities among the cast. Branko for instance clashes wonderfully with Mladen, who Luka Peroš plays as a brash, arrogant scoundrel. Although Peroš doesn’t get a lot of screen time to have much of an impact on the film.
One performer who was afforded such screen time however was Nataša Dangubić. While she initially seemed like a fish out of water when playing the paintball contest, Dangubić never failed to inject a great deal of attitude and charisma into the role. There was a feistiness and a certain swagger to her ruthlessness (especially near the end of the film) that made her a joy to watch. Her subtle smirk when being double crossed near the end of the story was just perfect. Dangubić easily made Maja one of the more interesting characters in the film. Another interesting character was Sanjin the interpreter, played by Željko Königsknecht, who put a surprising amount of intelligence and moxie into the role. As the film progressed it become more evident than Sanjin did not exist merely to provide a service for the company’s boss. He participated in this exercise as much as anyone else and Königsknecht achieved quite a commanding presence in many of his scenes. He was also excellent in finding clever ways to subvert his employer’s authority, which allowed Königsknecht to mine some modest humor out of their tense relationship. It was a fascinating performance. Sanja Hrenar should also get credit for providing some dramatic intensity to the film. She was well cast as one of the characters who had to deal with most of the tragic outcomes of the game.
Then there’s the character of Zrinka played by Anita Matić Delić in a performance that might divide opinion. Early on I could feel the potential for her to be very annoying and tiring to watch and yet the more I saw from her, the more intrigued I was with the character. After awhile I could get used to her off-kilter personality and if nothing else, she played the role with a certain verve and manic hysterical spirit that made the film more interesting, even if her attempts at comedy were a bit too overreaching at times. Perhaps in comparison to the banal stoicism of someone like Branko, I grew to appreciate the character more as the film progressed. Without Matić Delić the film just wouldn’t have had the same energy. I suppose you could argue that in heavy doses this type of character would be a bit grating, but since so much was happening elsewhere in the film, there was never any threat of this occurring.
As for the other performers, they either weren’t featured long enough to make much of an impression, or they played their characters in a painfully dull, one-dimensional fashion. Apart from perhaps Ivan Glowatzky’s gift for expressive facial reactions there’s nothing of note worth mentioning. Even then Glowatzky’s acting came during one of the film’s more meager attempts at lighthearted comedy. The only comedic ventures that were more off-putting and tepid came from the only characters that I truly despised, that being the family of rustic, hillbilly bogans. These were boring, uncouth characters who offered the film nothing besides attempts at cheap, low-brow laughs. The son of the family, Muhlo, is so desperate to satisfy his base human urges, that at one point we see him hump a tree. Really filmmakers? This is what you have to resort to in order to pad a film? Even if this idea sounded good on paper the actor, Luka Petrušić, plays Muhlo in such a creepy and cringe manner that this sequence was more disturbing and embarrassing to watch than anything.
Still Muhlo managed to conform to the film’s overall thematic statement. Šuma Summarum is not a film that holds a bright, positive view of humanity. It suggests that the notions of civility and morality are largely complex social constructs. Thus it contemplates the strength of such forces by placing a team of office workers beset by endless mistrust and dysfunction into an environment that perhaps encourages a concession to their more natural, base, animalistic, kill-or-be-killed instincts. It expresses a very dark, dim view of humanity that does not see the species as being evolved or separate from the brutal forces of nature. The fact that the film’s title is translated into English with the word ‘creatures’ is appropriately on the nose.
1 - The release date can be found at the following URL: “cineuropa.org/film/148161/”
2 - For a list of Propeler films you can go to the following URL: “propelerfilm.com/filmovi”
3 - The Forest Creatures page at Kinorama can be found at the following URL: “www.kinorama.hr/en/filmovi/Forest-Creatures/4”