Na biciklu vozim Nenu
Ulice pune se rupama
Preživjelih nema, druže
Ulice pune su žrtava
O-o-o, ko će shvatiti to?
Ljevica, desnica, centralno
(Haustor, "An Unusual Day")
Director i cinematic critic Arsen Oremović (1966), is an author who has behind him an interesting, mostly documentary oeuvre, some of which was also shown in Belgrade (Married to a Swiss man, the third). He often stayed here, sometimes even played with his own from punk group, but this time he intended to present to us his most complex project to date - an exciting film The third world, which will have its Serbian premiere at the "Dok'n'Ritam" festival, on Thursday, September 25, at the MTS hall in Belgrade, after a more than enthusiastic reception in Sarajevo, Herceg Novi, Vukovar and elsewhere.
The third world is a biographical film about the Zagreb group "Haustor", but on a deeper level it offers an irresistible, vital insight into the state of mind from which the Yugoslav "new wave" once arose, and is therefore valuable and goes beyond its nominal subject. The description of the guys, the future members of the band, and their upbringing in the SFRY, as well as the motives that made them slowly but surely, through music, begin to fantasize about freedom - could refer to any part of the former country and any brave band from the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties in this area.
photo: albert ramirezHaustor
However, this is "Haustor". A group about whose timeless music there were few words of praise and many criticisms while it existed, but which with the arrival of the future grew into an extremely appreciated rock relic, somewhat similar to the fate of "Ekaterina the Great". Thanks, among other things, to Darko Rundek's later successes as a singer-songwriter, "Haustor" has become a favorite musical reading for the current enlightened young generation from that decidedly better past. All that was missing was this film to canonize him and allow him to finally be recognized as a great and holy name of the local rock culture.
After a prolonged introduction about the gathering of the group and the recording of their phantasmagorical debut ("Haustor", 1981), the author enters into a speleological analysis of the creation of their masterpiece The third world (1984) through conversations with the original creators. What makes the whole story unexpectedly exciting, even poignant, is the parallel between them young and them now - namely, the band recently reunited to record dub version of the title track, so it was an opportunity to see live how even to this day that youthful motivation to reach something magical and otherworldly, to indulge in the freedom that is never enough in a strictly controlled reality, has not left them. This is a movie for all the immortal children and the sinking sun.
"WEATHER" At the time of release Third world grupe "Haustor", in 1984, you were, we assume, Yugoslav high school student, already crazy about music. No, let's start from the very beginning. How did you get into the world of sounds in the first place, panel, later and playing in a band? Did you have an older brother or sister who already exposed you to modern rhythms?, or was it classical music, that is, the hits from the SFRJ festival of the parents' generation, maybe you went to music school as a kid or is... was actually quite different?
ARSEN OREMOVIC: From the earliest days, I remember the songs that I would hear on the small radio that my parents had when we lived on the twelfth floor of a skyscraper in Zagreb's Knežija. There were Zagreb chansons, "Beatles", "ABBA", so in the house there were some singles by Alain Barrière, good entertainers, the hit phase of Elvis from the seventies, "Smokie"... Very diverse influences. And then my cousin, who lived with us during his studies in Zagreb, returned from a trip to Germany with Red i Blue Beatles albums. They became the starting point of my life. And the fanatical worship of the "Beatles" has remained to this day. Another important moment was going out London Calling "The Clash", and along with it the immersion in the explosion called ex-yu new wave and from punk. And that's where the mix of all that started cooking in the fourteen-year-old me.
At the end of the seventies and at the turn of the eighties, our cities are already infected with those mentioned punk i new wave Ljubljana, Rijeka, Zagreb has completely new happenings on the music scene very early, and you are still in elementary school when that "confusion" reaches our brotherhood and unity. Which song knocked you off your feet first?, domestic and foreign, so much so that you thought you might get on the rock stage yourself?
Those were Azra's first album, which I listened to in disbelief that something so raw and powerful existed, then songs from A package deal: "She wakes up", "Golden parrot", "The crocodiles are coming"... Album Dolgzeit “Pankrta”, compilation New punk wave 1978 1980, p And the day started so beautifully. “Initial”… And, of course, Haustor: "Pogled u BB" was and remains one of the most special songs ever. Another incredible one was "Ghosts". She introduced me to the fact that a song can be a whole stage performance. I experienced it as our Zagorje, drunken version of "Bohemian Rhapsody", but as no miracle - it was all normal. So, all of that entered me as a kind of burst software program, which was self-evident to me then, and today I am aware that it is mostly because of such things in those years - we are what we are today. Because it wasn't just songs, just musicians, but a whole cultural and social package: music, art, film, literature, fashion, politics... You can reconstruct the whole world of the sixties with "The Beatles", and for much longer. And it was similar with us: with the first album "Haustor" I absorbed not only the music, but also the artistry of Josip Klarica (the author of the photo on the cover of the first album of the group "Haustor" - note author). Everything came in a package.
Do you remember what books and magazines you read in that long ago time?, which films thrilled you and what kind of places the kids in Zagreb went out to, where it was important to show up, to gloat?
Since I very quickly got into from punk circles, we mostly hung out in and around the Student Center in Savska. "Jukebox" was like a musical bible for me and I couldn't wait for a new number every two weeks, I think it came out every other Thursday. I usually took two copies, one for the collection that I still have today, and the other for cutting, gluing and collage. I would often buy one and deftly pull the second one from the pile, pressed against the first one, which I would show my aunt at the newsstand. And once I was less dexterous, or my aunt had a better eye, so I was caught (laughs)... "Polet" also had an important influence, because it followed wider events in youth culture and that in my area. So, music began to take hold of me since the fourth or fifth grade of elementary school, and at that time I regularly went to our cult cinema "Triglav" in Trešnjevac. Everything was seen there, from the silent comedies of Chaplin, Stanley and Ollie, Harold Lloyd, to the kung fu films of Bruce Lee and Brilliant. And when the cycle of Fest premieres with films started on television in my first year of high school 2001: A space odyssey, Ficcaraldo, Kabare, Amarkord, Death in Venice, that's where things got serious. Under the rush of those wonderful stories, I felt the need to start writing down what I was looking at and what impression it left on me. It was a strange magical hand that guided me, without any influence from my parents, so the stage and the city became a kind of mentor and compass for me. When I think about it today, I obviously then unconsciously grabbed my own world and space of freedom.
Maybe you knew Teofil Pančić, later a famous journalist "Times", at that time in Zagreb?
I don't remember him from that time, but I met him later, when Borivoj Radaković and I were working on a collection. rock the short story "Sounding Wall". I don't even remember the details anymore, I just remember that he was comically hesitant about it.
Group "Haustor" it clearly played a significant role in your teenage metamorphosis and musical maturation. Tell us., please, something about that? Was it only in connection with their two concerts in 1981?, or you also liked their singles, first album?
It was all a pure gem of course... I loved all the new wave bands that were in their early stages for the time rock journalism were sacred. But I have the impression that "Haustor" was at the back of that chain, because it was the only band that received extremely bad reviews from "Jukebox" and other critics. And to me, they were particularly fascinating and different precisely because of what some ghettoized them for: because of their anchoring in Zagreb and the Kajkavian environment, a specific poetic view of the verses and a complete stylistic unrestrainedness that simply went beyond the understandable criteria of that time. Today, at least when we talk about Croatia, "Haustor" is the first band from that era that young people discover.
"Blitzkrieg" was your musical contribution: short-lived, but an intense flash of Zagreb from punk scenes. How do you look at that experience today? What did it leave in you??
We were formed at the end of 1984, from several bands from Zagreb from punk scenes, like some kind of demo from punk "supergroups". I came as a drummer from the group "Excess". "Blitzkrieg" was then, according to the writing of "Poleta" and among the crew from the stage, so that it does not appear that I am the only one saying so, it was known as the most serious Zagreb, maybe even Croatian from punk second generation band; by songs, but also by the number of concerts in those very intense years. We got to the point that in that short period of time we became an almost indispensable opening act for all major foreign countries from punk bands that came to us at that time, like "The Exploited" or "Angelic Upstars", which was incredible for us. But, unfortunately, we remained at the level of a demo group, because we were too... or frivolous, or unaware of what music means in our lives. And also from punk was already fading in our discography at that time. Despite this, after three performances in Belgrade in 1985 - at SKC, at the Academy and at Taš - we also received an offer from PGP RTB, but the band had already begun to fall apart at that moment. The key break was the departure of our guitarist Aleksandar Ardalić - Dolgcajt, today better known as Lene from the band "Minđušari" and collaborator of Bora Čorba in "E moj druže Zagrebi". After he finished high school in Zagreb and returned to Knin, he was briefly replaced by the late Goran Kostić - Kosta, who would later, after leaving Zagreb for Niš in 1991, found the group "November". That's how the story with "Blitzkrieg" ended after only one year - stormy, but without a record. However, many years later, in 2015, NE Records released a rarity EP Apel / Who is to blame? with four demo songs, so somehow the circle was closed there.
Do you think that the story of that band could be material for a new film??
At one time I was seriously thinking about a film about the disintegration of the former state through the relationships within our group. We are with Kosta after the release of the EP Apel already planned to record a new single in Niš as a kind of single soundtrack of that project, but his premature departure stopped everything. I don't know if that idea has been abandoned forever, because I already have some things recorded, but I feel that it would from punk a band whose members found themselves on opposing sides, especially if you take into account the extreme rhetoric of "Minđušar", could be a special and strong key to portray those social, interpersonal and personal fractures. Like Damir Karakas in the novel Blue Moon brilliantly portrayed the cracking of the relationship through rockabilly community. the Zagreb scene from the end of the eighties, as well as our grotesque one punk the story has the potential to become a powerful film and offer a unique view of the traumatic nineties.
Is it a personal experience of playing in a band, living through music, making songs alone and in rehearsals, writing lyrics and coming up with melodic lines, was forty years later important for the creation of the film The third world?
From today's distance, that experience is precious to me precisely because it was unarticulated and unconscious. It was not a career in the classical sense, but a brief flash of energy, togetherness and experimentation. And when I was working The third world, I also realized the difference: demo bands like us did not have the same work discipline and consciousness as "Haustor". They used to play six hours a day, day after day. This is perhaps the biggest lesson: passion, talent and energy are important, but without discipline there is no serious progress.
Let's get back to the movie. why The third world, and no Haustor? What made this album particularly important, for you personally and the music scene of Yugoslavia in general? For what reasons?, in your opinion, its importance has grown from that time to the present?
In my film, the concept of the "third world" is also the album of the same name, but it is not only that, it is also a metaphor for looking at life - as Milan Mladenović said, "with the eyes of a child" - from which life on autopilot takes us away. This view already exists on the first album "Haustor", which is perhaps closer to my heart because of its formative role and introduction to the world of the strange - where Zagreb's Trg in "My first love" can take on a port and the sea, and in "'60-'65" an ordinary clerk's chair on the veranda of the house at Bosutska 27A takes on a supreme poetic significance. Album The third world has, however, expanded and made it even more complex. It was no longer just an album of a generation, but a permanent repertoire of questions about meaning and the way we see reality. And about what we can do for ourselves, instead of expecting others to do for us.
How would you describe this album musically today? its content and significance for the new wave generation to someone who wasn't even born then?
It is a record that combines sophisticated musical architecture, poetic wonder and a call to action, but understood as a personal, internal act, and not as a mass movement. There are no hits in the radio sense, but a whole that demands to be listened to from beginning to end. It was an album that forced us to devote ourselves a little more to the content, to pay attention to the text, arrangements, color, zampoña, talking-drum... Unlike mainstream albums of that time, The third world he did not aim for instant recognition, but for a lasting impression. And for someone who discovers it for the first time today, it is still an eye-opening record, because it has not aged at all either in its themes or in the way it invites imagination and a different look at everyday life. However, I must admit that it will never be clear to me why at least "Unusual Day" was not removed from that record as a single. Maybe then everything would go in a different direction.
photo: albert ramirezDarko Rundek and Srdjan Sacher
What was it like to meet your heroes in general? primarily with Darko Rundek and Srdjan Sacher and what impression did they make on you?
I didn't really treat them as heroes. But I did let them go more than I would others, because they were and still are my heroes. As a teenager, I watched them from the audience at the Biennale and in Skuc, and later I met them as a journalist, through interviews and promotions. But being with them decades later in the studio, restoring those same recordings and watching them create again, was something else entirely. Both of them left the impression of extremely content and complex people, but also complicated - however, not because of star poses, but because of a serious search for meaning in what they do. That was the most important thing for me: I wasn't dealing with "characters" for the public, but with authentic authors who still want to research and not repeat themselves. And I actually saw the heroes only when I saw all five members of the band on the red carpet of the Sarajevo Film Festival. This is the image that has followed me all this time since then. And I'm glad that this image is primarily a fan image, not a collaborative or author image. Maybe it's that view "through the eyes of a child".
How much did the band itself help you formulate the final shape of the film?
Crucial. If they hadn't decided to re-enter the studio, the film would have looked completely different. Then we would only have an archive and their personal stories. This is how the actual process took place in front of the cameras - the return of the song "Treći svijet" and the creation of a completely new "Probudim" - and this gave the film a pulse, drama and change. But an equally important shaper of the film was their rhythm. I did not hurry with the project, but accepted that they go through stages: doubt, distance, curiosity, until the actual work. Although the film looks from the outside as if it could have been shot in a month, in reality it took five years from the first talks to completion, or three since the cameras started rolling. Breaks were not empty time, but constructive phases of hibernation: development, contemplation, search for purpose. They are people who do nothing without a personal purpose - and that, in the end, became the foundation of the very structure of the film.
The most challenging moment during the making of the film, some anecdote?
The most challenging were actually the moments when nothing seemed to be happening. Or when they openly showed doubt that they needed all that at all. If I was younger, it probably would have broken me, but this way I switched to another project and let time take its course. And if I have to single out one situation, it was the moment when Rundek and Sacher came to my house for the first time to watch the edited version of the song that is near the end of the film. Both of them are not people for visualizing music, they don't like music videos, and now I have to watch that scene with them both. It was terrible for me, until Rundek looked and calmly said: "OK, we have the music video. Now we still have to finish the song." They never finished the song, so the raw version remained in the film, exactly as it was recorded that day.
For years now, we have witnessed an increasing number of excellent music documentaries both in the world and in our country, films that slowly reveal the hidden pages of pop culture to us and place certain artists in a historical context. Your movie is, certainly, a very valuable contribution to this series. What is the scope of this documentary production in the understanding of musical art?
I think it largely depends on the approach itself: whether the films are set more informatively and mythologically, mythomaniacally, or whether they really try to penetrate into the creative processes. In general, music documentaries are extremely important to me and I follow them with particular interest, even when they deal with artists who do not particularly appeal to me musically. Because you can always learn something about creativity, about the dynamics of work, about the way music is born.
Finally, Do you consider yourself a movie star? The third world managed to explain the essence of the group's creativity "Haustor"?
That is my view, but it is, as Rundek and Sacher emphasized in Sarajevo, quite similar to how they see it. It was also said that I certainly did not desecrate theirs The third world. If you knew them, you'd know that's a very high praise! (Laughter)
