settima

Yugoslavia

Sedmi kontinent [Sedmý kontinent / The Seventh Continent] (Dušan Vukotić, 1966)

Dec

13

Francis Drake's circumnavigation

Sedmi kontinent (1966)

The first two children to set sail, with Iris Vrus on the right, and possibly Tomislav Pasarić on the left. DP: Karol Krška.

A voyage of discovery on the start of Francis Drake's circumnavigation. Children, ignored by their ever-busy parents, set sail to the Seventh Continent.

Roj [The Swarm] (Miodrag 'Mića' Popović, 1966)

Dec

12

International Day of Neutrality

Roj (1966)

The judge and the woman. DP: Milorad Marković.

Trying to stay out of conflict on the International Day of Neutrality.

Празник [Praznik / The Feast] (Đorđe Kadijević, 1967)

Dec

25

Christmas dinner

Празник (1967)

Soldiers eating bread at a set table. DP: Aleksandar Petković.

Sedmi kontinent [Sedmý kontinent / The Seventh Continent] (Dušan Vukotić, 1966)

Aug

12

teevee dinner

Sedmi kontinent (1966)

A little blond boy on a red tricycle driving past his TV-ish dinner in an empty house. DP: Karol Krška.

Moć [Power] (Vlatko Gilić, 1973)

Jul

25

Threading The Needle Day

Moć (1973)

One of the men, threading the needle. He's young, bearded, and shirtless and in what appears to be a cave or cellar. DP: Ljubomir Ivković.

Slobodan Ćirković aka Roko was (or is? I cannot find a lot of information online) a Serbian hypnotist capable of making people painlessly self-inflict torment. In Vlatko Gilić's short and rather disturbing Moć, Roko initiates a large group of men to thread a needle and slowly, going from him to the next to the other, connect the one thread through their bodies until all of them are stitched into one.

 

Strangely homoerotic and determinately violent, Moć feels deeply rooted in the #Serbia​n psyche. There's beauty and an unflinching élan-vital under the skin, a tenderness that comes with great, unmentionable #pain, love and death.

Nevinost bez zaštite [Innocence Unprotected] (Dušan Makavejev, 1968)

May

25

Tap Dance Day

Nevinost bez zaštite (1968)

A woman tap dancing on top of the raised barrel of a very large cannon in a circus tent. This scene, lifted from Цирк [Tsirk / Circus] (DPs: Grigoriy Aleksandrov & Isidor Simkov; DPs Vladimir Nilsen & Boris Petrov, 1936) inspired Dragoljub Aleksić – a trained blacksmith – to build his own cannon to shoot people out off. DPs: Branko Perak & Stevan Mišković.

Nevinost bez zaštite is a treasure trove. Of fantastic people, feats, footage, and genres. We sit down to watch #Serbia's first feature talkie, also named Nevinost bez zaštite (1943), and are joined by the people who created it.

“Dragoljub Son of our native land! Teeth and muscles, Tried and true All our hearts go out to you!”

While they speak, and occasionally burst out into song, about living in Yugoslavia under Nazi, then communist control, we meet Dragoljub!, the movie's lead with the jaws of steel. A man of great works, humanitarian and other, demonstrates his iron will. And while so, we all, starstruck and in love, sing:

“When they hammer your head, The skull is hard, And never cracks, Mother's little babe of steel! Dragoljub Son of our native land!”

H-8… (Nikola Tanhofer, 1958)

Feb

5

Disaster Day

H-8… (1958)

The driver and a boy keep an eye on the road. The second driver is asleep. It's raining. DP: Slavko Zalar.

In mere hours, a disaster involving a bus and a truck is bound to happen. The story meanders from the bus passengers to the truck drivers, while the road stretches out before them.