Serbia earned a special distinction in this series. They were the first country to qualify for the World Cup before I actually sat down and watched one of their films. When doing my initial research for this project there were a few Serbian films that ended up on my radar. However since I didn’t think Serbia would get the automatic berth from their group stage, such films were never at the top of my to do list. After the team’s shock victory against Portugal I did some casual research later that night and found this selection. I must admit that the ease in which I found a film that interested me, that satisfied my selection criteria, and which I could access relatively painlessly was a bit spooky. Perhaps I’ve overestimated how difficult this project would be to complete. I’m not quite sure if I’ve benefited more from sheer luck or from an increasingly globally conscious world, but either way I’ve probably received a modest boost from both.
I have the distribution company Icarus Films to thank for making this available in the US. After acquiring the US rights, the film was screened at various film festivals across the country and even had a very brief theatrical run in New York City during the summer of 2018. A DVD release came the following summer and the film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime, iTunes and Kanopy. There is a website for this film which contains a great deal of information regarding its global availability. According to worldcat.org three public libraries within a 20 mile radius of where I live were holding a copy of the Icarus Films release. Within a 40 mile radius I would have 20 libraries to choose from. For the library that was the second closest to me, I paid them a visit in order to watch the film from within their confines. As of yet, no one’s ever really bothered me while I watch a film in a library. And I doubt that anyone will until someone who reads this work, walks into a Chicagoland library, and sees someone watching a film on a laptop with an external DVD drive. If they manage to put two and two together, the end result will be awkward.
What I found strange about this film was that it began by establishing an enticing premise which it then largely ignored for the majority of its’ running time. This film wasn’t really about the mystery of what existed behind a door that was sealed shut following a political revolution and which had been locked for decades since. There actually wasn’t much of a mystery as to the person living on the other side, someone who was revealed halfway through the film. Rather I saw this film as a modest, yet genuinely warm and heartfelt biographical portrait of an academic and political activist as she reflected back on her past life and the political turmoil that she had to endure in her country. Because of such turbulence the national identity of the film’s subject remained an open question that triggered feelings of ambivalent regret.
I still enjoyed though how intellectually curious and engaging the film was at times. In its initial setup the partitioning of the apartment was interpreted as a symbol of the fractured class tensions in Yugoslavia following WWII. While the film didn’t do much to build on this idea, it was interesting to consider how often Srbijanka Turajlić expressed disbelief at the behavior of her fellow citizens. The film perhaps used the apartment to subtlety express the notion that countries can be comprised of compartmentalized factions that too often fail to understand each other despite the space that they share. Much of the wisdom contained in the film was not presented as being unique to any specific situation within Serbia which allowed it to be viewed as stimulating to a broad audience. One of the more fascinating comments expressed in the film was Srbijanka’s declaration that “...all revolutions fail…and that those who win the revolution always manage to screw it up.” This of course invoked the old adage that power corrupts and perhaps suggests that all revolutions are doomed to either fail or embark on a path towards decadence and hypocrisy. Combined with some of Srbijanka’s later commentary the film also hinted at the notion that there’s something particular about the power of running a country that makes it nearly impossible for one to resist its ignoble temptations regardless of personal temperament, culture, or the system employed. To add additional texture to these ideas Srbijanka quoted an absolutely beautiful line from an unidentified poem “Will freedom sing as beautifully as the oppressed sang about it?”. This perhaps captured the fatal flaw of all revolutions; the basic human tendency for people to be more passionate about what they covet than what they possess.
Another wonderful line came early in the film when Srbijanka read an article written about her in which journalist Tamara Skrozza stated “In winning freedom, just like in life how we travelled is more important, than arriving where we had planned.” As good as this sentiment is, the real pleasure of this scene was seeing the joyful, disarming smile from Srbijanka in her delightful response. Probably the greatest strength of the film was that it captured a truly intriguing and compelling person, someone you would want to spend time with in order to get to know better. Srbijanka’s genuine and natural personality was easily capable of drawing one into the film. There was an incredibly sharp and acidic audacity in seeing her accept an award only for her to explain that she was being awarded for failure. My natural inclination was to respect and admire the boldness of a person who was capable of such a brutal and honest self-assessment on that type of stage. But of course I could also enjoy her dark humor especially when she turned toward her daughter Mila, who directed the film, and jokingly warned “If your film doesn’t show how well I polish the silver, I will kill you.” There was an abundance of personality and charm in how Srbijanka talked about her past which made the film very engaging. When talking about the transition of power after October 5th, she displayed a dismissive shrug about what the future had held for the new regime. This modest gesture communicated as much as her verbal testimony did. Often Srbijanka was very expressive in her body language. Her face at times could simultaneously show traces of pain, regret, and maybe even some confusion and yet she still worked in small slivers of her wry, sardonic disposition. Her smile would always seem a bit crooked, even in some of the archival images that the film showed.
Granted the cinematographic approach didn’t always place a great deal of focus on Srbijanka. In the early moments the camera seemed as interested in showing off the apartment as it was its occupant. Srbijanka’s commentary sometimes would be heard in the background while one was presented with a series of static images that probed the more intricate details of the residence. The apartment was as much the subject of the film as Srbijanka was and I have to wonder if there was not some effort to explore any hidden, symbiotic relationship between the two. Generally there was a good balance between the intimacy of its human subject and the deeper perspectives that showed off the physical location. While there was some modest level of camera movement, none of it was particularly spectacular. The approach largely depended on a series of static shots and a wealth of archival material which crafted a somber, haunting ambiance to the film. Granted there was some creativity in the staging of the shots, especially the ones that went through both spy-holes. I also liked hearing the sound of Nada Lazarević from Srbijanka’s apartment which was an interesting touch that captured both how close and yet how ghostly distant she felt.
The dinner scenes were also interesting in that the film seem to favor capturing people within their natural element while engaging in passionate conversations with their neighbors and other close associates. This was a refreshing change of style from the dire, ubiquitous tactic of staging a talking head interview which often feels detached from any sense of reality. The interview segments here felt very casual and were staged with a strong sense of the location in which they took place. During one segment where Srbijanka discussed the events of October 5th we see her walking around the apartment, with the camera patiently waiting for her to step back into frame and deliver her salient remark about revolutions. The overall style often was very candid and extemporaneous, with the cameraperson occasionally peering outside the window to capture a country that still maintained some of its past volatility. The film even managed to capture a sense of chaos during a scene where a street protest developed just outside the apartment complex.
Of course such a development was never planned by the filmmakers and while I can understand the decision to include it in the final cut of the film, it did highlight the weaknesses in the film’s narrative construction. The film rarely conveyed a clear purpose or direction with its content and at times would bounce back and forth between politics and the human drama surrounding the apartment in an aimless manner. The discussion of the political turmoil in the country was also never presented with much depth. During the Math Olympiad reunion dinner, Sloboan Milošević’s 1988 proposal was never explicitly mentioned which left viewers not well versed in Yugoslavian history a bit in the dark. Granted I suppose that the main purpose of the film was not to offer a thorough analysis of Yugoslavian history. If nothing else the film presented enough information to prod the intellectually curious into deeper research. Druga Strana Svega though was more successful in expressing the notion that Srbijanka Turajlić has led a sufficiently exciting life as an academic and government minister to warrant some retrospection. Although this weakened the original premise of the film. Once one got to end of the film and had the chance to comprehend that Srbijanka lived through the doomed nature of Yugoslavia, the tragedy of the civil war that split the country apart, the hyperinflation, the reign of Sloboan Milošević, the NATO bombing of Belgrade among other events, the opening of the locked door felt incredibly anti-climatic. And without any mystery as to what was on the other side, it felt like an insignificant act. Furthermore the fact that Srbijanka would come to regret this decision cast her in a very harsh light as an out of touch member of the bourgeois class who did not desire to fully understand her country. The final execution of this premise tragically caused what was otherwise a fascinating portrait of a truly compelling person to end on an awkwardly sour note.