Paradise - destination, moment or illusion?

The feature-length documentary "The Possibility of Paradise" shows that paradise is neither a reward nor a destination, but rather the moment in which we experience it, and at the same time an illusion. Mladen Kovačević. Therefore, the search for oneself, for happiness, meaning, peace, but also for destiny, seems, if not more, then just as important as the very possibility of heaven. That is, after all, the most that life can offer...

The film was screened on Tuesday evening at the 16th UnderhillFest International Documentary Film Festival. The action takes place in, one might say, the Garden of Eden itself, among palm trees, waves, the sounds of nature, in its embrace, silence and the dynamics of everyday life, in the harmony in which people awaken and appear. It is in the middle of such an island that Kovačević places a film that deals with the landscapes of the human interior...

Shown on the “Dragan Ivanović” basketball court in Njegošev Park, under the clear Podgorica sky on a windy and warm night, Mladen Kovačević's “The Possibility of Paradise” seemed almost a symbolic coincidence or predestination.

Although officially filmed on an island in Indonesia, surrounded by tropical flora and sea horizons, the location and space lose their significance in front of shots that are worth feeling and experiencing... However, in that exoticism, the individual is hidden, and then the community, society and the world as it is emerge, imposed or desired ambition, internal tensions and silent longings that flicker beneath the surface.

“Children living on the top of an island wait for the rain to stop. A former advertising agency CEO signs a land purchase agreement for her new mansion. An entrepreneur battles nature while building a jungle resort. A veterinarian clears strangers’ yards of snakes. An influencer, disappointed in love, recovers from losing everything overnight. A father and son prepare to leave forever, not knowing where. A dancer takes on a new identity, distancing herself from everything she’s ever known. Divers venture into uncharted waters, risking their lives in a quest for conquest. Tensions between life’s possibilities revolve around the question of what kind of life should be lived, as each decision leads us to a different version of ourselves. And while an earthly paradise is nothing more than an ideal of imagination, humanity’s tireless search for happiness never ends,” is the film’s short story, synopsis, and a whole series of lives...

Although the film moves through spaces that seem surreal, the human stories within them are truly universal. Stories about people who, each in their own way, seek happiness, meaning, and the possibility of a better life, often the same... But, that better life is not a luxury, an escape, a reward or a change, but, an almost imperceptible and expected right to decide, to dream, to just be... Thus, the film explores the question that silently follows every individual: what kind of life should we live? Because, every decision leads to some next, different or new situation, decision, and even a version of ourselves.

Paradise is no longer a reward, nor an ideological image of salvation. It becomes a metaphor for what is constantly eluding, a projection of inner longings that never end, a need for escape and diversion, and in the era we live in, it definitely seems nonexistent and unattainable... In this, the film is contemporary, because more and more people are surviving, and fewer and fewer are truly living, whether it is conditioned by capital, ideology, the system or the self...

Without hyperbolizing, the film problematizes that the question of today is not how to find paradise, but whether we are even able to recognize it if and when it appears...

At the end of the screening, the director is in conversation with the festival spokesperson. Miroslav Miro Minić revealed that his inspiration for the film was Dante's "The Divine Comedy", primarily "Purgatory", which was recognized, among other things, by the Italians, so the film premiered at the 81st Venice Film Festival. He also revealed that it was the selectors who suggested to him not to change the title of the film, which was then only a working version, but also that this correlation between "Paradise's Possibility" and "The Divine Comedy" was the focus of interest of the audience and the profession in Venice.

There are many analogies to "The Divine Comedy" throughout the film, and the director has only discovered a few.

“It’s not something I expect anyone to recognize in the film, it was just my initial inspiration. There’s this subtle connection to Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’ which for me has always been a story about a life crisis and a path to self-realization. Dante placed Purgatory on an island on the other side of the world, in the middle of the ocean, and this film also takes place on the other side of the world, in the middle of the ocean. Dante’s Purgatory has seven circles, seven levels, this film has seven stories and this prologue. In Dante’s case, in addition to these seven levels, there is also this top of Purgatory which represents an earthly paradise, and this prologue begins with something that is actually an analogy to this earthly paradise where these girls live a completely ordinary, everyday life and regardless of the fact that they are surrounded by all these elements of tropical vegetation, they don’t see the idea of ​​paradise in it, at least not in the way that we see it... The film ends with a scene in which divers dive into this dark and turbulent ocean, and Purgatory begins with Dante and Virgil, "Fleeing from hell, they come through that dark and turbulent ocean to Purgatory," said Kovačević, emphasizing that "it is not a matter of the environment, but of the way we perceive that environment."

His idea was to, through fragments of the lives of several characters who live in the shared environment and space of that paradise island, as an author, reexamine the idea of ​​the tireless need and search for happiness and self-realization.

"Even in such an island paradise setting, the question remains whether this life is the one we should be living," Kovačević concludes...