When you've been facing a cruel reality for decades, at some point nothing is particularly shocking anymore, because that's simply life, the director says in an interview with Vijesti. Mladen Djordjevic.
"It's as if the reality show spilled out of the screen, spilled into reality and began to shape it according to its own laws that exist on television screens," he says, presenting his own experience of our reality, describing it as a mixture of pornography, violence and show business, with an increasingly strong and pronounced process of show business.
Art cannot significantly change this, but it can awaken awareness, and perhaps even conscience. His films are like that, cruel, sobering, with a touch of humor, dark. For all of this, he emphasizes, he finds motives in reality.
His film "The Working Class Goes to Hell", of which Montenegro is a minority co-producer, has been recognized by the audience as a close-knit film since its premiere in Toronto, through numerous festivals, including the Herceg Novi Film Festival, and has won numerous awards. The story follows a group of former factory workers who fight for justice after losing their loved ones, jobs, and dignity in a fire and dubious privatization, resorting to the supernatural...
Thus, “The Working Class Goes to Hell” is an authentic mirror of today, a non-existent class, but also a potential prediction of what awaits some actors on the global scene. In an interview for Vijesti, Đorđević talks about the state of society, the West and the East as (seemingly) confronted and opposing actors on the “great chessboard”, comments on the power of art, the consequences, the effect and the reflection of the so-called elites, and also talks about his new film, “The Love Room”...
Although at times it seems like a post-socialist dystopia, your film “The Working Class Goes to Hell” is a reflection of an ordinary person from the now non-existent middle or working class. The film concerns everyone, not only in this region, but also globally, which is also recognized by the audience of numerous festivals. How do you experience all of this, how much do the awards mean, including the 10th anniversary one at the Herceg Novi Film Festival, and how much is the applause and reaction from the audience?
The award means a lot to me, as does the fact that the film did quite well at domestic and regional festivals, because this topic is, above all, about the region. I am pleased with the way it communicates and because I managed to make a transgressive film that is extreme in a way, without ending up completely underground, but also communicates that with the mainstream.
I have also noticed the reactions of the audience at festivals in the West, where everyone understands what this film is about. Although at first glance one might say that this is a Balkan or Eastern European topic, the situation in the West is getting more difficult. This is probably also related to the war in Ukraine, the economic crisis that has been going on for a long time, so people are increasingly forced to work several jobs a day, so they can certainly understand the problems of my characters. The social, or welfare state, is in (collapse) decline, and will probably face its greatest test in the coming years, we will see what happens.
The audience responds well to dark humor. I was surprised at the premiere in Toronto in September 2023 how well the Canadian audience understood dark humor. I thought the humor of this film leans towards the local, and the Canadians laughed even more during the screening than the audience here, perhaps because they still have a certain distance from the topics I deal with. Therefore, it is easier for them to laugh, because they do not live in problems like we do, but I think they are slowly sliding towards it. I am not an economic expert, but that is my feeling. All in all, I am surprised by the audience's reaction, and the audience likes the film, they liked the mix of genres, as well as the fact that the film goes in an unexpected direction that they could not have imagined. That, for example, is one of the compliments I heard from the audience and critics after the premiere in Toronto.
All scenes in the film have their function and nothing is there for the sake of decor or hyperbole. That's exactly why the story is harder, but so is the laughter. As much as humor is a relief and a defense mechanism, sometimes it's simply hard to get there, how do you use it? And how much is our reality sometimes just like that - (tragi)comic?
Well, sometimes it's also a form of protest. Of course, the story is very much based on reality that I drew for the film by watching everything that was happening around me, reading different things, following the media, listening to experiences and people. That's how I draw inspiration for the film. And yes, as an obligation, there is that comical aspect of deviation so that it doesn't sink into all that darkness, but so that the audience can't laugh all the way through. Of course, it's black humor. Although some situations may seem exaggerated, you noticed that everything is very much based in reality. For example, the scene with the freezer, I read about it in the newspaper - it was a scandal six, seven years ago in Serbia. I read an interview with a mother whose daughter was part of those orgies where they put food on naked girls, and that girl got pneumonia and died, because she caught a cold that way...
What was it like to face such things during research? As much as we are aware of the circumstances, which are sometimes beyond the dimensions of our mind's comprehension, it seems that every encounter with something like that is a new defeat. And how then to convey that in a film, whether from a distance or not?
I have no distance from these events, because it is something that I have been experiencing for a very long time, for decades, so nothing seems particularly shocking to me. For this reason, I cannot say that some things and scenes were too difficult for me to face, because it is simply a life that I have been living for a long time. Since I have been in everything for too long in that sense, then it was not too difficult for me and no, I do not have distance. The world we live in is beautiful at times, but we should also think about how harsh our reality actually is, and how gray, not to say black, the future is. We, people in the world of film and art, in different ways, also you, as well as journalists who follow art, are part of that world that I am talking about, but still a little isolated from the real, harsh reality. It seems to me as if the reality show has spilled out of the screen, spilled into reality and started to shape it according to its own laws that exist on television screens. True, in Montenegro this is less present than in Serbia, but that would be an explanation of how I experience reality. It's a mixture of pornography, violence and entertainment, and the process of entertainment is getting stronger and stronger.
Can artists do something about this issue, or is art, including film, a zone of resistance, freedom, critical thought, but also inspiration, a zone of the beauty of life compared to the mix you mentioned?
I question myself and I don't have an answer to whether artists can change reality, because that's a big question that I don't have answers to. My approach to that is a reaction to that reality, pointing out some dimensions of reality that are a bit hidden or so obvious at first glance. I want to bring out some deeper layers, and whether that will have a healing effect on someone or not, cathartic or not, I don't know. Of course, I'm not sure that art can significantly change reality, but it can awaken awareness in relation to reality.
What do you think about an engaged or activist approach in art?
I'm not a big fan of engaged art, although there are elements of that in my films. And when it comes to this film, I didn't want it to be some stereotypical, engaged, transitional film, but I wanted to deviate from that, which I did, so I connected various genres, maybe even undermined the cliché of social drama that is related to Eastern Europe a little from the inside. But, ultimately, art has to overcome that instrumentalization and some mere engagement, because behind every engagement there is the interest of some group and very often artists are just servants and megaphones who propagate certain ideas, whether they come from the left, right or center. I think art needs to overcome that, because it is more useful, and maybe that approach can change things more. Maybe the role of the artist is to create a work of art that is part of reality and whose task is to cultivate that reality, in that way changing it.
Where and what is the role of artists or the intellectual elite, if they exist at all today, in all of this?
I think that we do not have any elite, and if we do have one, then the elite is mostly to blame for our downfall and all that is happening. The elites act more like some kind of occupation structures... I think that there is some consensus among the elites that is negative for the people, in terms of coalitions. So there is a mutual coalition of these elites that is to the detriment of the people... I am talking about different elites, about the church, about the cultural, intellectual elite, politicians, services. They often, I do not say always, but often have an interest in the people not being well, so that they can be well - as a kind of parasitism.
What influence do the East and the West have on people as two "blocs"? The image that is being presented is that they are complete opposites, where we have the West as a certain kind of utopia or promised land in which everything is easy if a person wants and tries, which can also be the merit of marketing, propaganda, media, and even cinema and art. On the other hand, socialism, communism, totalitarianism and similar associations... I will not go into the accuracy of these ideas and claims. What is the situation in your opinion, and is the world really that polarized?
Well, it is. I have the impression that everyone has always needed a story like “we have a fortress in which the people are privileged, and we also have the people on the other side of the ramparts, outside the fortress”. That is the relationship, the West is like that. I would also like to point out that I have the impression that the countries of Eastern Europe are also very capitalist, that liberal capitalism is rampant there too, and that we have elements of the welfare state much more in the West. Of course, the West owes its prosperity to the fact that there is no prosperity without wealth. In poor countries, there is no social justice, and what exists is based on wealth. Unfortunately, these riches were accumulated over the past centuries, sometimes through robbery. So even today, the West provokes wars, whether for oil, various resources or some other reasons, but that is how it also builds its prestige and its own welfare state. We can go back in history and say that Greek philosophy and art would not have existed if there were no slaves, because slaves allowed great minds free time - to philosophize, create art, and devise laws. Nothing has changed since then - there are masters and there are servants and it has always been that way. Of course, there are elements of propaganda in all of this, as you said, where the West is marketed as the promised land. This can also be seen at festivals, for example. The question is what these Western festivals like to take from the Balkans and Eastern Europe, because very often they are some dark images of reality that serve to show their, Western audience, how they are actually doing well, because in some other places life is very bad. It serves as a kind of warning of how they can end up if they don't respect their institutions enough.
Now, if we refer to the film, and then to this story of ours in general, where is the working class today and what is its position? Is the life of the working class a struggle, does it even exist?
It seems that the working class is dead and no longer exists, at least to me. Of course, one cannot speak of a class, even though workers exist. That battle was lost in our country when the workers, while Yugoslavia was falling apart, decided to unite along national lines, not class lines. That is where the problem arises, and that is why we no longer have a working class. In general, there is more and more talk in the world about this precariat, about people who have temporary and occasional jobs and an uncertain future.
If the working class is dead, then do industrial cities exist? Is there hope and a future for them and their renewal after transition, privatization, or the destruction of everything that kept such a city alive and vital? Your film talks about the fate of one such center, a former giant...
Yes, my film takes place in such a small town where a factory has died and another problem arises, which is related to the green agenda in that perspective. I believe that in the West in the future there will be no heavy industry that pollutes, except perhaps in some part that is specifically intended for it, and that could be part of the Balkans, such as Serbia. Generally in Europe, America and in the Western world in general, the future is the green agenda, which implies the closure of heavy industry and in general as a polluting industry. The closure of factories in our country is again related to foreign and the interests of foreign capital, import lobbies, although we are as guilty as we are and that is clear.
Speaking of which, how do you view the issue of lithium mining in Serbia, and what did Germany support this summer? Although the protests over the collapse of the canopy at the Novi Sad station may have overshadowed the issue, it is still relevant. This is evidenced by the recent situation in the Bogatić municipality, where a group of farmers and locals stormed the local assembly where a public debate was supposed to be held on the municipal spatial plan and lithium exploration, in order to ensure the conditions for opening a mine in that area...
The German Chancellor came to Belgrade and that contract or letter of intent was signed, anyway, about exploiting mineral resources in Serbia. That brings us back to the story of Serbia's perspective and what Serbia is envisioned or planned for in the future - whether it will be a waste storage facility, uranium, a mining colony... all of that is possible, we'll see... It's quite a complicated topic, and sometimes it seems to me that it's not a conflict about whether to mine or not, but about who will mine. It's a complex game, but what's brave is that a lot of people in Serbia have taken to the streets before. That perspective is very important and people's awareness that this must not be allowed. It remains to be seen what will happen. I am, honestly, optimistic.
In Serbia, there is this culture of protest, rebellion, which we are witnessing even now... In Montenegro, it only occurs occasionally, but recently, there have been more and more such cases throughout the region...
People are disappointed because they have often been manipulated or abused, and their hopes and expectations have been betrayed. Many have lost faith, but there are those young people who are ready to fight and, it turns out, people have the strength to take to the streets again. I hope they will succeed in their goals.
How love has been sidelined and marginalized in the modern world
What are the plans for the next film?
My next film is also a feature-length film, a feature film, and it's called "The Love Room." The action takes place in prison, in those rooms where prisoners are allowed to receive visitors and have sexual relations. Unlike my previous films, it will be a single-camera film where in most scenes we have two actors. That love room is a microcosm through which these couples, five or six of them, pass. That microcosm reflects all those important social issues, related not only to our region, but to humanity in general. It's also a film about how love in the modern world is sidelined and pushed to the margins. My challenge is to make the film interesting, dynamic, and to take place in that one cramped, small space, that is, in the love room.
Is it difficult to get money and financing for a film?
It seems to me that it is a little easier for me now than before, because “The Life and Death of a Porno Gang” has gained cult status over time. So at the end of 2023, I received funding from the Film Center of Serbia, and now there are more frequent competitions, which means that it is still better than before, because there is obviously more money, although it is still not enough when you look at how much the films get individually. When it comes to my new film, I made it a little easier for myself, because it is simpler to produce, so I am not forced to go into co-productions and I think I can shoot it faster.
Bonus video:
