We have passed the halfway point of this 38th edition of the Mostra de Valencia with Lost country, production between Serbia and Croatia directed by director Vladimir Perišić, who, this time yes, was able to attend his presentation.
Perišić's film places us in his native Serbia, In the year 1996. Stefan is a teenager who leads a life focused on his studies and his relationships with his friends.. But if there is something that distinguishes Stefan from the rest of his classmates, it is that his mother is a senior leader of the Serbian Socialist Party.. And this is not just anything, Well, the country has just held local elections in which Milosevic's party has encountered strong resistance due to its repressive policies.. So it is so that, about the supposed socialist victory, suspicions of fraud weigh. These suspicions, plus the fatigue of the population, caused by the Balkan war, causes demonstrations against the government to occur throughout the country that will be strongly repressed. This climate of confrontation, moves unexpectedly into Stefan's life who, suddenly, He feels like a victim of general rejection because of his mother's possible involvement in these events.. From here, your life will become a real torment.
Based on the director's personal experience (la madre de Perišić, although he did not hold such a relevant position, He was a member of the Serbian Socialist Party) and other historical references (that were discussed at a press conference, but we will not tell it so as not to reveal the outcome of the film), Lost country moves, at a first level, on the effectiveness of the historical and social portrait. Compared to other proposals presented so far in the contest, case of Three sparks, Marina…, o Riverberd, among other, Perišić's bet does not stand out for proposing any aesthetic and formal game. On that ground, Lost country is limited to effectively stating some facts, if perhaps mixing elements of the black cinema, both in terms of the structure of the film, as in lighting work, as the director confessed in his talk with the press.
This work of historical reconstruction and staging, combined with a script with a solid structure, allows Perišić to direct the viewer through a series of emotional curves that affect different levels of the film's discourse, creating a general tone of discomfort that extends throughout the story.
Lost country speaks to us, above all, of politics. But here it does not refer exclusively to the specific case that is presented to us., but to politics in a broad sense. A policy that, more than leading to the solution of the problems that affect the citizens over whom he governs, leads her to a state of permanent confrontation, dividing it based on personal and party interests, Culture, religion or supposed race. The continued lie on the part of institutions and rulers, lead to a state of general confusion and confrontation with disastrous consequences, and in which the citizen no longer knows who is friend or enemy. It is this state of confusion that interests the Serbian director.
It's the same confusion that poor Stefan suffers, without a doubt the biggest victim of this situation. Torn between loyalty to his mother, to your family history (His grandfather fought in World War II against fascism) and the reality that his own context poses, at the institute, and the atmosphere of the streets, The young man finds himself involved in a conflict of interests in which it is difficult for him to distinguish who is telling the truth or who is deceiving him.. Despite all that political environment in which he has lived all his life, Stefan is thrown into a world drowning in a conflict he did not choose.. It is said that, in every war confrontation, the first thing that suffers is the truth. The problem is that the only guide to revealing that truth is trust in an interested story.. While some accuse his mother of betrayal, She assures him that these accusations are ideological manipulations of the political opposition.. But, How can you decide on one side or the other without any other proof than mere trust?? And here no one escapes, including the other side in conflict that, as Perišić himself recognized in a press conference, Nor does a future await him politically very different from that present of that time against which he was rebelling.. from there, held, the news of the tape.
Political conflicts that, how it represents the movie very well, lead to cruel social isolation. Faced with the apparent unanimity expressed by his colleagues against the government, Stefan doubted. and that doubt, linked to his relationship with his mother, it distances him from others. Stefan strives to keep everything as usual, but the radical polarization of society, puts him in front of an alley without an honorable exit. his mother, for his part, tells him to resist, that he is different, and that difference has a price. The verdict will be implacable. In this sense, it is worth highlighting the sensitivity and, at the same time, the simplicity with which Perišić solves these dramatic problems. In one of the most eloquent sequences of the film, Stefan is playing a game of water polo. The camera follows him from one side of the pool to the other. Despite occupying a good position to score, on his team no one passes him the ball. Little by little, he is left alone.
In a final reading, the family appears as the background of the conflict. From the beginning, We see that the relationship between Stefan and his mother is very close. But once the complications begin, We realize that this relationship is one of pure predation. Every time Stefan shows some hint of rebellion, His mother appeals to emotions that the boy does not know how to handle. And although the logical thing would be for her to be sincere and keep him out of her activities, in the end, loyalty to the party and their own personal and ideological interests, your foolish selfishness, they impose. That's how far the poison of politics can go. GERARDO LEON
