3rd Subversive Film Festival in Zagreb

Dilizansa snova/The Stagecoach of Dreams (1960) by Sofija-Soja Jovanovic, the first female feature film director in Yugoslavia, was screened at the beautiful Kino Tuskanac.  This was a period piece with a comedic tone about a poet/philosopher (Slobodan Perovic) who falls in love with a woman and pursues his object of desire passionately.  The narrative of the film was a bit off and oftentimes it was difficult enough to sit through.  It seemed to be a rather disjointed attempt that was lacking in comedy or even interesting characters.  Though Jovanovic holds an important place in the history of Yugoslav cinema, one would hope that her reputation rests on a better film than this one.

The next film that screened, Suncani krik/Sunny Whirlpool (1968) by Bostjan Hladnik, proved to be a treat.  Another comedy, this one mildly surreal in its formal approach, Hladnik crafts a whimsical story about an irresistible boy (Bojan Mark) who gets a job as a photographer working in an all-girl’s design school.  Soon enough the girl-crazy boy is pursued by hundreds of boy-crazy girls who wear him down, each one taking their turn to win his affections.  Crossed with this plot is a sub-plot about a pair of bungling robbers who are looking for hidden money in one of the model refrigerators, and who think the boy is guilty of stealing their hard-earned stolen goods.

Hladnik, along with Aleksandar Petrovic, was one of the directors who initiated Yugoslav New Film in the early 60s with their openly expressive, auteurist-based cinema.  Sunny Whirlpool is an interesting melange of outrageous situations and animated sequences, which takes as its focus the new generation of kids coming of age in that fateful year (May ‘68 in Paris, the Belgrade student demonstrations, Prague Spring).  This Slovenian film depicts its youths as career-minded, yet interested in having a good time more than anything.  The experimental opening credit sequence of the film with its rock band performance, wild montage of magazine photos and overall psychedelic stylings, recalls A Hard Day’s Night (1964) in both tone and approach.  However, Sunny Whirlpool is ultimately a unique and inimitable film that sticks out in the history of Yugoslav cinema like the sore toe that the protagonist suffers through for most of the film.