Every citizen of the former SFRY who went through the regular education system had a lot to learn about the Jasenovac Ustasha camp and what happened there during the Second World War. Jasenovac was also in history classes, but also in SH/HS language classes, in reading editions and their interpretations. Of course, Jasenovac was also on student excursions, which regularly visited the memorial complex at the place of the suffering and learned the horrific details of the monumental crime on the spot. These are terrible stories, and they don't come out of my head as easily as, say, the names of mines in Hungary. People always talked about Jasenovac in the family, and we are also well aware of the stories about some incidents in the camp that became public places, and which - due to their dramatic nature - were especially emphasized at the dawn of the so-called awakening of national consciousness in the second half of the eighties. Well, all those general places found their place in the film Dara from Jasenovac directed by Predrag Antonijeviฤ, which had its "world premiere" last Saturday on the First Channel of RTS. And besides the general places, there are only a few "interesting details", which, however, many will say, failed to make this film a watchable achievement.
Everything about this film is problematic from the beginning - this is what happens when a state, especially if it is dysfunctional like Serbia, interferes paternalistically in matters of art, trying to instrumentalize it for some of its own goals. And at the same time, he hires not too solid authors. It was clear to everyone a long time ago that it was Dara from Jasenovac a state, that is, a national project, which was cooked to a good extent in political kitchens and which is an important part of the "long-suffering" cultural strategy that was once presented by certain cultural leaders. No one even tried to hide it, and in the end, President Vuฤiฤ made a point in this regard, claiming that the state helped the film on his initiative, and that he is proud of that fact. Who knows, maybe he also took part in writing the script, in the break between state affairs and sports training? Or at least gave some fatherly advice? Evil tongues will say that his author's seal can be glimpsed in the film.
The state was also very generous - according to some sources, it allocated around 2,3 million euros for this film (money received from the Film Center of Serbia and by a special decision of the Government of Serbia). For the sake of comparison, films in our country at the FCS competitions for the last thirty years have received, at least until recently, a maximum of 250 to 300 thousand euros. So when is it Dara in question, it was possible! They probably won't save on the continuation of the film, which has already been announced and should connect the Jasenovac and Stara Gradiลกka camps with the military operation "Storm", which happened fifty years later. The goal, said director Antonijeviฤ, is to "complete the Serbian exodus from Croatia." Therefore, the goal is not to artistically transpose important historical events, but to "complete" them. Some, again, will say that all this is for the purpose of inflaming nationalism, as always an effective tool for ruling. Also, the goal - which is not hidden - is to change the "bad image" of Serbs created in the 1990s in the world.
When an authoritarian state decides to do something, there is no procedure or "profession" that can prevent it from being implemented. Somewhere up there a decision was made that Dara from Jasenovac was going to be Serbia's candidate for the Oscar for the best foreign film, and so it happened. In vain, some representative associations of filmmakers protested because the procedure for choosing the national candidate for the most popular world film award was marked by numerous failures and irregularities. Who even looks at that when "national interests" are at stake. What are the rules when it comes to suffering! When the film, as expected by many, fell out of the race for the Oscar, director Antonijevic stated roughly that it was an anti-Serb conspiracy and that "there is nothing new in the West."
Director Stevan Filipoviฤ also warned that this film ignored the obligation of all production companies whose films are (co)financed by the state - which is cinema distribution before the television premiere. Residents of the "Serbian world" had the opportunity to see this film on TV screens, which is a modern name for those territories that Belgrade considers its own - Serbia, Montenegro and Republika Srpska. The film was then posted on YouTube, with the aim of being seen by those who were busy with smarter work on Saturday evening. Therefore, there will be nothing from cinema distribution, at least not in the cinemas of the "Serbian world". The state's intention is, obviously, that as many citizens as possible taste what the state has served them as quickly and as pompously as possible.
PLAGIARISM OF DIKLIC AND ZAFRANOVIฤ?
Controversies surrounding this film have a longer tradition: Croatian director Lordan Zafranoviฤ accused the film's authors of "taking his subject" two years ago. And that he wanted to make a film about Jasenovac, based on an old script by Arsen Dikliฤ Children of Kozara, but he was rejected in Serbia for years because of, as he said, "political influence". In his film, one of the main protagonists was also supposed to be a girl, whose name was not Dara but Rada. Playwright Biljana Srbljanoviฤ compared two scenarios the other day and concluded that a good part of Dikliฤ was "incorporated" into Antonijeviฤ's film. Because she stated "plagiarism", she received a large number of threats. Otherwise, Children of Kozara received funds last year at the competition of the Film Center of Serbia.
Before the premiere, Dara from Jasenovac also caused a stir on the film internet platform IMDB. The "bots" here had the aspiration that, thanks to their involvement, the film would receive the highest possible rating. Croatian national workers responded to the "Bot" attack from the countries of the "Serbian world", so a real war broke out on this popular portal before the film was even watched. This resulted in IMDB temporarily suspending the ability to score this film. Of course, great interest was also caused by certain articles in the world media, including those who assessed that it was "bad propaganda that incites hatred and divisions".
If the Novi Sad singer-songwriter ฤorฤe Balaลกeviฤ had not left us, whose death caused intense reactions throughout Yugoslavia, the projection would probably have Dare from Jasenovac gained incomparably greater attention on social networks. However, it cannot be said that there were no reactions. In contrast to Gioleto's departure, which united the former Yugoslavia in sorrow and love, Dara produced outpourings of hatred. In addition, it caused negative reactions from film experts. For example, Nebojลกa Romฤeviฤ, a professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, said that in this film "historical and fictional levels are equalized". "Thus, history is actually devalued, because it is presented as fiction, and fiction is also devalued because it seeks its foothold in history and not in art, so the damage is multiple: we did not get either an artistic or historiographical work, and the victims are, in the last resort , became fictional," he said. Playwright Ivan M. Laliฤ, once again, rated yes Dara from Jasenovac reminiscent of the "elephant in the glasshouse", after a "great movie Diary of Dijana Budisavljeviฤ".
The leitmotif reaction of the "patriotic bloc" to Daru from Jasenovac - whether it's government representatives, regime media or internet activists - ever since he started being mentioned in public and until today, it's roughly said that for the first time citizens have the opportunity to find out "the truth about Jasenovac and Stara Gradiลกka". "Evil communists" have, as it were, hidden this truth for a whole century. Propaganda, of course, has no sensitivity to the facts, including those that the historian Nataลกa Matauลกiฤ stated in her photo-monograph about Jasenovac. Matauลกiฤ stated that by 2000, 1188 books, 1544 memoirs and study articles, and 108 collections of documents had been published about the Jasenovac and Gradiลกka concentration camps. He ignored the "patriotic block" and the fact that more than XNUMX documentaries and feature films were made about the Ustasha death camps, including those signed by the aforementioned Zafranoviฤ. Feature film Ninth round by Slovenian director Franz Stiglic from 1960, which ends in Jasenovac, was in the main program of Cannes and was also nominated for an Oscar.
NATIONAL IDENTITY BASED ON JASENOVC
In an interview with Vreme, historian Dubravka Stojanoviฤ says that it is "absolutely not true" that Jasenovac was a secret for the citizens of SFRY. It reminds of numerous books and films about this camp, as well as the magnificent monument of Bogdan Bogdanoviฤ dedicated to the victims of Jasenovac. He points out, however, that it is true that the official policy of the former Yugoslavia forced "the heroic narrative of the partisan-fighter as the only true victim, because that was the founding myth of that state."
"Civilian victims could not compete with that narrative, and the victims of inter-ethnic exterminations were suppressed because Yugoslavia was a country of reconciliation and everyone tried not to open wounds, both Serbian and non-Serbian. But it should also be shown comparatively, because in all of Europe the talk about the Holocaust, for example, was completely suppressed until the end of the sixties, and recent research shows that, in fact, only the American series The Holocaust from 1978 made that key cognitive and emotional upheaval. A new European community was being built and dealing with crimes was transferred to later generations, so the SFRY was in the trend at the time not to insist on painful topics. Newer approaches to the issue prove that there is no healing of society without confronting it, but this is a consequence of contemporary studies of genocide," she says.
The writer Saลกa Iliฤ points out in an interview for "Vreme" that the thesis about the concealment of crimes in the Ustasha camps is a thesis of Serbian nationalists that is not based on facts, given that all past decades "intensive work has been done on the publication of historical and documentary material about Jasenovac, and films about this camp were also shot in SFRY". That thesis, in his opinion, aims to portray Yugoslavia as a "dungeon of the people", in which it was forbidden to talk about Serbian victims.
"Jasenovac, Sremski front, post-war redemptions, IB, Goli otok, suffering under Udb... This series also applies to nationalists from other areas, with the overlap of some historical events. If we replaced Jasenovac with Blajburg, we would get a sacrificial narrative that nationalists from Croatia would sign. But what is the main problem of those nationalist elites is the inability to really process something in an artistically relevant way," he says.
He believes that in the Serbian cultural policy, which until a month ago was implemented by the former Minister of Culture Vladan Vukosavljeviฤ, Jasenovac is "one of the fundamental points for establishing national identity, which is why huge money from the budget was approved for this project." "So, on the one hand, we have monuments like the one to Stefan Nemanja, which should ensure the historical depth of the nation, while these film projects should establish the nation's sacrifice and deepen historical conflicts." It is part of the development of the Cultural Development Strategy, which was adopted by the Ministry of Culture with the approval of all directors of cultural institutions in Serbia. So, this is a very serious state project," says Iliฤ.
Dubravka Stojanoviฤ says that she made a great effort to Daru from Jasenovac he watches until the end because the script - as he says - is "thin and banal", and the whole film is "very bad", "slow, completely without dynamics, to the point of unwatchability".
"In the artistic sense, for me it is a devastating fact that the film shows that the authors either did not understand or did not even 'read the required reading', that is, they watched films about the Holocaust, for example. Because talking about separating children from their mothers later Sofia's Choice, or about capos after Night porter, or about children in the camps after the film Life is Beautiful - it is extremely intellectually and artistically demanding, because it should be stronger than those previous works. And in this film, all of that is far, far below the previous artistic expressions, as if the authors did not even pay attention to the fact that these themes have been strongly conveyed artistically so far," says Stojanoviฤ.
According to her, in Dari from Jasenovac everything is banal, so the film also trivialized the crimes in Jasenovac. She points out that she completely agrees with art history professor Nenad Makuljeviฤ, who said that "a film or picture about evil cannot consist only of scenes of evil, coldly arranged one on top of the other, which is why the entire history of visuality is full of codification of death, narrative about evil". "There is no such thing in this film, the evil is reduced to its brutal banality, which, in my opinion, loses its weight and depth, and therefore misses the point," she says.
Saลกa Iliฤ also points to numerous problems in this film, primarily "those concerning dramaturgy, composition, direction and acting". He believes that when an author tackles difficult and serious topics, he must "find an inventive narrative and a composition that can carry such a message."
"A special thing is the ethics of the staff, which is in Dari from Jasenovac completely disintegrated and the film functions as a series of horror scenes, which line up as the only and basic story, as creepy teasers for something that we will have the opportunity to see yet. However, there is no such serious context, and therefore we are forced to watch only slaughter, killing, torture, digging pits, piling up corpses, as well as the passing of the main character between those scenes, which are the only content of the film. In all of this, the main character, her story, is lost, she is in some tenth plan, while in the foreground is the gallery of executioners, which are again done flatly, with occasional steps," he says.
For Dubravka Stojanoviฤ, this film irresistibly reminds of the monument to Stefan Nemanja. "Make something too expensive, too big, banal in artistic expression, literal in its message, and actually without real emotion." That's why they are pictures of today's government, not the Serbian Middle Ages or the Jasenovac tragedy," she says.
She believes that the goal of this film, as well as its announced sequel, is to "build anew a paranoid image of Serbian history and to deepen self-victimization, as the most successful emotional tool of nationalism." The goal, she would say, is to "completely undo the crimes of the Serbian side in the wars of the 1990s, because the victim cannot be blamed." "That's why this message is extremely dangerous, it repackages the narrative of the last wars and renews fear among people as a fundamental emotion that breeds aggression and revenge." But it is completely understandable to me - this government, when it finishes the successful vaccination, will no longer have anything to offer and will have to return to extreme nationalism as a mask for all our problems. This is the beginning of that phase," she says.
Croatian journalist Ladislav Tomiฤiฤ believes that the ambition of this film is to once again "bring the Ustasha crimes under the nose of Croatia, which were certainly more terrible than any film can show". "Keeping in mind the attitude of modern Croatia towards the Ustasha regime, specifically - the attitude of the Croatian judiciary, the executive power and ultimately a good part of society towards the Ustasha symbols and the Ustasha salute - Croatia needs that film." More precisely: Croatia should be reminded that the Ustasha regime killed in death camps; that he killed innocent people just because they are Serbs, Roma, Jews or communists," he says.
On the other hand, he thinks that Serbia does not need this film because "it will certainly not bring anything new that is not known about Jasenovac". "The film will only serve to inflame evil passions in Serbia, to add fuel to open hatred towards Croats and the Croatian state." I believe that for Serbian society, films like these would be healthier Quo vadis, Aida, which was filmed by the Sarajevo director Jasmila ลฝbaniฤ about the massacre in Srebrenica. I believe that confrontation liberates, and hatred destroys individuals, society, regimes, and states," says Tomiฤiฤ.
