A Single Story

One can complain least about the truthfulness of director Bora Draskovic's film "Vukovar, A Single Story". The director portrayed two national principles as parallel and strove to say that during war it is the human being that suffers above all. Director Draskovic also said this in an interview, but the basic problem with the film is that this intention is only a premonition. In this story about a young married couple, she a Croat and he a Serb, everything functions with the help of stereotypes and antagonisms which never seem to interweave, delaying the drama until the end.

What we are talking about is a bad film. However, Bora Draskovic is one of those directors who has enriched this cultural milieu. This is now a problem for the critics who, squeezed by justified respect toward his previous opus from one side, his latest, unsuccesful work from a second side and critics' honesty from a third, refrain from giving a definitive judgement such as the one at the beginning of this paragraph.

Because of its sudden proclamation as film of the year and as candidate for the American "Oscar" award, "Vukovar, A Single Story" has become a story in itself. Until this autumn's showy commercials about "the soul-stirring story about a Croatian woman and a Serbian man", director Misa Radivojevic's film "Neither in Heaven Nor on Earth" had been named the best at this summer's festivals. At the time, Draskovic's "Vukovar" had problems as a film produced abroad (Cyprus) and was kept from direct participation in any film competition, including Yugoslav. Probably unhappy with the decision of the commission that chose the candidate for the "Oscar" nomination, Radivojevic's film crew scheduled, and then cancelled, a press conference. With such a gesture, the "Neither in Heaven Nor on Earth" team freed the consciences of the commission made up of prominent members of the film industry: Nebojsa Djukelic, Zdravko Velimirovic, Miki Stamenkovic, Marko Babac, Milan Mitic, Bozidar Zecevic, Nenad Dukic and Miroljub Vukovic.

Upon announcing our candidate for the "Oscar" award, Zdravko Velimirovic stated that, as president of the Herceg Novi film festival panel, "With pleasue, I voted for Misa Radivojevic's film 'Neither in Heaven Nor on Earth' because it really was the best and most complete film in that competition. However, this time we thought about what would be most interesting for the world at this moment. The entire world is asking about what is happening here and Draskovic's film enables the world to find out." Another member of the panel, Milan Mitic, Belgrade daily Vecernje Novosti's film critic, was even more direct in explaining the nomination in his newspaper: "The media war, which we unfortunately lost, has done its damage, and this film gives us the opportunity to - in a now somewhat calmer atmosphere - show the world what is going on through art which is stripped of passion and ideological purpose... The commission found in the film things of value other than those that are very important for our policy: that we did not sow the seeds of hate, that we do not propagandize and that we clearly say that love, Serb and Croat, was the biggest victim of that senseless war... 'Vukovar' can do much to change the way they view us in the world, so since we have such an opportunity, the ministries of culture as well as the federal foreign minister should immediately think about it."

This is how the story about the movie leaves the sphere of film. The world does not need to know what kind of movies we make, but what we are like instead. And judging by Zdravko Velimirovic's written words ("this is a film that has received the legal support of Serbia's Ministry of Culture"), Serbia is once again attempting to puncture "the balloon of lies". Only now the idea of the just struggle has been replaced by the idea of Serbian peacemaking policy. If Serbia continues to present itself to the world through art and culture possessing "things of value other than those that are very important for our policy", that will mercilessly return her to the poetry of utilitarianism, so that, in addition to the culture and foreign ministries, even the police ministry would be involved in the arena of culture.