Tribute to the director, analysis of Titoism

The documentary film "The Makaveje case or the process in the cinema hall" by Goran Radovanović, part of the domestic competition program of the 47th Fest, is based on the audio recording of the so-called public discussions about the film "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" by Dušan Makavejev from 1971, which was a prelude to his ban. Along with a tribute to the famous director, Radovanović's film also presents a critical analysis of titozmo, which unexpectedly took on an emotional color.

Radovanović stated that the emotions entered, unfortunately, due to the recent death of Makavejev, and previously of Milena Dravić, whose participation in that documentary was her last appearance on film, as well as the participation of photographer Andrej Popović.

"We filmed Milena on March 14 last year in the Belgrade Cultural Center Hall, where there was an exhibition of photos from her films. Coincidentally, it was the last day of the exhibition and it began to be taken down. That wasn't in the script, but I reacted, we also shot those shots, which brought emotion and a metaphor about transience," said Radovanović.

As he added, the other participants in the documentary are about to leave, which is sad, but also inevitable, given that it is a reconstruction of an event from almost half a century ago, that is, the discussion held in June 1971 in the Novi Sad cinema "Arena", which was the introduction to the banning of the film "WR: The Mysteries of the Organism".

"Otherwise, there is no emotion in Makavejev's films, his work belongs to the more formal, intellectual being of film, language. There is a lot of irony, sarcasm, and the least amount of emotion," said Radovanović, director, screenwriter and producer of the film "The Makavejev Case".

The title of the film also speaks of the content - a kind of court process and the author and his work, which was held in the "Arena" cinema in the form of the so-called public discussion organized by the Cultural and Educational Community of Vojvodina after the screening of the film "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" held on June 5, 1971.

About 70 percent of the participants attacked Makavejev, and about 30 percent defended him, and among them were Vojin Dimitrijević, Andrej Popović, Ilija Bašić, Petar Volk, Dejan Đurković, Vuk Babić...

According to Radovanović, objections to Makavejev, after his ironic, almost mocking attitude towards the cult of personality of Josif Visarionović Stalin, mainly came down to the fear of the communist self-governing apparatchiks that Josip Broz Tito would not be the next on the wallpaper.

In the film "The Case of Makavejev", there are no dialogues or interviews, but four audio tracks from the "public discussion" are listened to. A lot of material from the film "WR: Mysteries of the Organism" was also used, especially the parts that bothered the participants of the "public discussion" the most. Since Milena Dravić played the main role, she is the most present in Radovanović's film.

One of the most important participants in the film is the author of the audio recording, Slobodan Miletić, who reconstructed the event from 1971 in today's "Arena" multiplex.

Makavejev is represented in the film by Svetozar Cvetković, who was the favorite actor of that great director and the only one from Serbia who played in three of his films (Mister Montenegro, Gorilla bathes in the afternoon and Manifesto). Cvetković interprets the defense of Makavejev, which was recorded on the fourth audio track, and continues on the fifth.

It turned out that it was stolen, but luckily the transcript remained. Cvetković is present in the film without saying a word in some locations that are related to Makavejev and his films.

Radovanović said that the audio tapes, which he received two years ago thanks to his colleague Igor Toholje, were a shocking discovery for him.

"I realized that there is enormous historical value there as an authentic source of the way of thinking in that era. When a person says in a discussion: 'In our democracy we can ban a film, he says it as the most normal value attitude,'" pointed out Radovanović.

In this context, Radovanović quoted a long-ago statement by Makavejev himself: "My former country claimed to be a social experiment, and it looked more like a combination of a prison and a circus."

On the occasion of a critical review of the control of art in the era of socialism, Radovanović noted that "it is not popular in Serbia to deal with Titoism".

"There is an idea in some political options, but also among young people involved in film, that it was a happy era. Nobody cares about the totalitarian character of that regime. It is enough to show that Gina Lolobrigida or Liz Taylor used to come to Vanga, that whiskey was poured in gallons for (Richard) Barton, and we are happy about that. Or that we were corrupt, that we could go buy jeans in Trieste with our famous red passport. For me, Titoism was not easy, I was aware of that totalitarian character," Radovanović pointed out.

Noting that he is an art historian by training and therefore has some serious models of seeing history as a science, he concluded that "everything that happened later - came out of that coat of single-mindedness, ideological discourse that washed our brains". "Shuvarism, self-management, dialectical materialism, pre-military training... People have forgotten that very easily, but it is the basis. Today we talk about party employment, but even then a person had to pay that devil's ticket to the Communist League in order to get a job," said Radovanović.

Radovanović said that he had an almost infantile desire to film something about Makavejev, the man who "brought light into the gray of socialist realism".

He told how, as a 13-year-old, he saw "Innocence Without Protection", a film full of illusions, games, and circus skills. "That's when I first came up with the idea of ​​the beauty of film as a medium and the desire to do it," said Radovanović, adding that during his career he had about 15 wonderful meetings with Makavejev.

"I can't say that we were friends, but he enrolled me in the European Film Academy. He supported me and was an inspiration to me," said Radovanović, the author of the award-winning documentaries (Casting, Chicken Elections, With Fidel to the End), and the dramas "Emergency" and "Enclave".

In the documentary, Makavejev, who has had difficulty communicating lately, appears in archive footage.

The co-writer of the film "The Makavejev Case" is Boris Trbić, a playwright who lives in Australia, and Radovanović met him in 2015 in Melbourne, after the festival screening of his feature film "Enclave". The producers of "The Makavejev Case" are "Nama Film" and "Oktobar Film", and according to Radovanović, it was filmed with modest means.

The creation of the film was also helped by the Yugoslav Cinematheque, which has deposited the film "WR: Mysteries of the Organism". Due to the reconstruction of the Novi Sad screening, "WR" was released in the Museum of Cinematheque in Kosovo. In addition to that logistical support, the Cinematheque Archive also helped, providing some precious documents related to the screening of the film "WR" in Novi Sad. Also, as Radovanović told Kinoteka magazine, Filmske novosti helped with archival material, as well as RTS, and Miša Milošević, Makavejev's cameraman.

Bojana Makavejev, the wife of the famous director, gave the exclusive shots.

"The Case of Makavejev" also contains footage of Makavejev's last appearance in public - at the Author's Film Festival in 2016, before the screening of the film "Sweet Mouvi".

After the premiere screening on February 25 in the Kombank Hall, "The Case of Makavejev" has three more screenings at the 47th Fest.

The 47th Fest, which began in his honor, was also dedicated to Makavejev, with the posthumous awarding of the Belgrade Winner award for outstanding contribution to film.

(SEEcult.org)