In contemporary cinematography in Southeast Europe, often caught between raw hyperrealism and banal politicization of the past, the film Nikola Vukčević "The Tower of Strength" stands out as a stylized, almost dreamlike cry of humanity. Based on prose motifs Zuvdija Hodžić, this film is not just a historical drama, but an intimate and powerful story that examines how much a person can endure when faced with absolute evil.
The plot is reduced to a brutal 36 hours during which Nuredin Doka (Edon Rizvanoli) makes a decision that defies the logic of survival. He takes into his home a Christian boy who is being persecuted by fascist paramilitaries, the people who previously killed his parents. At that moment, the film stops being a chronicle of war and becomes a story about what it means to keep your word when the price is too high.
In "The Face," anger is not just a custom or a folkloric motif. It is both a burden and the only space in which Nur can remain free. To stick to one's word means to give up security, community, and even one's own survival instinct. It is precisely in this gap between instinct and principle that the heart of the film lies.
Vukčević avoids the trap of didacticism. He offers no lessons on coexistence or simplistic messages about tolerance. Instead, he depicts a man who, following his own moral code, becomes a stranger in his own village, in his own family, and even in himself. The film thus does not speak of collectives, but of the isolation of an individual who decides to remain true to himself.
The director is equally adept at avoiding pathos. The subject matter is such that it could easily slip into sentimentality, but Vukčević chooses restraint. The emotion comes from the silence, from the gaze, from the tension between what is right and what is dangerous.
Visually, the anger is materialized in the film through the Nur Dok Tower. The tower is not just a defensive structure; it is a reflection of his inner strength. Within its walls, order, silence, and protection reign. Outside, the chaos of war, betrayal, and death reign. This clear contrast between the inner and outer worlds gives the film a strong symbolic dimension, but without being overly theatrical.
Landscape as a prison and a witness
One of the film's strongest assets is the work of the director of photography. Djordje Stojiljković. Critics from the Cottbus and Cairo festivals rightly pointed out that the film has the aesthetics of a "high western". The mountain ranges of the tri-border area are not just scenery; they act as silent witnesses to the tragedy. Through the play of light and shadow in the cramped interior of the tower, the camera builds a claustrophobic atmosphere in which silence falls heavier than gunfire. The external landscape seems spacious, but threatening; the internal space is cramped, but morally pure. This visual contrast intensifies the film's basic conflict.
Vukčević's directorial style seems more mature here than in his earlier works. Symbols: bread, threshold, gun, child's gaze... are not used as empty signs, but as elements of a drama that relies on universal experiences of fear, responsibility and sacrifice.
The power of silence
Edon Rizvanoli brings an exceptionally restrained and powerful role. His Nuredin is a man of few words, but every silence and minimal movement on his face speaks of an inner struggle. His dilemmas are not spoken, but visible in the small changes in expression, in a look that lingers a second longer than it should.
Nikola Ristanovski i Aleksandar Radulović They bring the necessary antagonistic charge, representing the blindness of different ideologies - the Canon and fascism - that collides with Nur's personal law. The character of Nur's father carries a special weight, whose presence on the screen reminds us that tradition can be both a burden and a support.
If the film has a weak point, it is the occasional loftiness of the dialogue. In some scenes, the speech seems more theatrical than contemporary film sensibilities would expect. However, as the film's structure is closer to ancient tragedy than realistic war drama, this loftiness can be interpreted as a conscious stylistic choice.
"Obraz" succeeds in what is most difficult: to turn local, Montenegrin and Balkan experiences into a universal story. The film does not require the viewer to know the historical details of the Balkans, but to recognize themselves in the moral dilemma that is presented to them.
It is a story of a tower of strength built not of stone, but of the decision to remain human when it is easiest to become a beast. In a time of global conflict and division, the film feels painfully contemporary, reminding us that face may be the most expensive currency a person possesses.
Anger, the law that is not questioned
While modern society is based on written laws and contracts that can be interpreted and changed, the anger in the film "Obraz" acts as an absolute moral obligation. For Nuredin Doku, the moment an Orthodox boy crosses his threshold is not just an act of hospitality, but a point of no return. From that moment on, he is no longer just a host, but a keeper of his word.
Vukčević does not romanticize anger. From the very beginning, he portrays it as a heavy burden. It requires not only courage, but a willingness to lose almost everything: security, belonging, and even life. The film's key conflict arises right here: between the instinct for self-preservation and the obligation to protect the one under your roof.
The film sets anger against the ideologies of World War II. Ideology demands collective hatred of the "other" based on belonging. Anger demands that the other be protected, because he has become a guest. In this clash of the collective and the personal, anger becomes an act of resistance. The persecutors see the "Vlach child," the enemy. Nur sees only a child in distress. This difference in perspective reveals the essence of the film.
The moment he decides not to give it up, his house ceases to be a home and becomes a fortress. That decision isolates him and turns him into a tragic hero who is at his loneliest when he is at his most moral.
Although anger is a specific Albanian cultural phenomenon, the film connects it to a broader concept of humanity - protecting the other from oneself. In this way, "Face" transcends ethnic and historical boundaries and becomes a story about the conflict between what we must do to survive and what we choose to be.
Anger here is the true "tower of strength" from the English title of the film. When the state, the army and the community fail, only the decision of the individual remains.
Nur Doka does not choose anger because he blindly follows tradition, but because he knows that losing face would mean a death for him that surpasses that brought by bullets.
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