Barba Žvane (1949)

Of the four feature films produced in 1949, "Barba Žvane" is the only one that I have been able to watch so far.  It is a partisan movie, but a very peculiar one focused on a quirky protagonist, the title character with the bushy moustache in the picture below.

Produced in 1949 by Zvezda film, "Barba Žvane" was Vjekoslav Afrić's second effort as a director after the war, and was produced together with the students of the newly founded film high school in Belgrade.  

The plot of the film, which is based on the novel Volovi dolaze (The Oxen Are Coming) by Drago Gervais - no relation of Ricky Gervais, to the best of my knowledge - is simple.  Partisans are starving to death in the Gorski Kotar area of Croatia.  Barba Žvane, a sterotypically canny peasant farmer, uses various tricks to sneak a herd of cattle from Istria through enemy lines to the hungry partisans.  A happy end, in other words, for the partisans, if not for the cattle.

The film begins with a communist rally that is interrupted by the Germans.  After heroically proclaiming that Tito will return to liberate the area, the ring leader of the communists is gunned down by the Germans.

The partisans may be starving, but this being socialist realism, they are also singing happily in praise of Marshal Tito, as in the picture here.

Barba Žvane is played by Dragomir Felba (1921-2006), who though only in his twenties at the time was made up to look like a rugged, middle-aged peasant.  He does quite a good job in the part of a peasant who uses his wily common sense to endure even interrogation by Nazis.  Though he suffers several setbacks, Barba Žvane completes his mission.  Driving home the point that efforts like his were part of the war effort, the directors use stock footage of Allied planes, tanks, and artillery fighting against the Axis.

Unlike "Slavica," "Barba Žvane" was not a success, neither with the public nor with critics.  This is understandable, as it is definitely a weaker film, but it does have some worthwhile moments.

The first five-year plan of Yugoslav film (1947-1951)

I have been reading Petar Volk's extremely informative Istorija jugoslovenskog filma (History of Yugoslav Film) in which he describes the first five-year plan of Yugoslav film (pp. 130-135).  The five-year plan for film was of course part of the larger statewide five-year plan.  The foundation for the development of Yugoslav film was with the Decree on the Establishment of the Committee for Cinematography of the Government of the FNRJ on 28 June 1946, and by the establishment of the state enterprises "Zvezda film" on 16 July 1946 and "Jugoslavija film" on 30 August 1946.  The Yugoslav republics also each received a republican state film company, though these were in accordance with the times strictly controlled by the central authorities.  On 15 July 1946, the republican companies in Ljubljana, Zagreb and Belgrade were named "Triglav film", "Jadran film" and "Avala film," respectively.  These were followed by "Bosna film" in Sarajevo and "Vardar film" in Skopje on 1 July 1947, and finally by "Lovćen film" in Cetinje on 1 March 1948.  During the same period schools and academies were created for actors and for other film personnel.

Volk states that all of these film companies, combined with difficult economic circumstances, resulted in the production of only five feature films in 1951, whereas the ambitious plan had foreseen the production of forty films in that year alone.  For this reason, by the end of the first five-year plan moves were taken to start giving the republican film studios more maneuvering room.  In fact, on 7 April 1951, the Committee for the Cinematography of the Government of the FNRJ was abolished.

Nevertheless, Yugoslav film production during the first five-year plan was not minor in scale.  Volk counts 19 long and 3 short feature films and 263 documentary films.  The preponderance of the documentary genre undoubtedly reflects the propaganda needs of the new regime.

Those interested in the early socialist Yugoslav film industry should definitely also read Goran Miloradović's excellent article, "Stalin's Gifts: Yugoslav Feature Films, 1945-1955."

Život je naš (1948)

Anxious and happy workers at a building site greet us at the outset of "Život je naš: Ljudi s pruge" (Life Is Ours: People from the Track), which was released by Avala film on 4 August 1948.  It was directed by Gustav Gavrin (1906-1976).  The opening credits tell us that "the film was filmed on the tracks with the assistance of the management of the construction administration, the main staff of the youth brigades, and the sacrificing participation of the I and II Miner's Brigade from Vranduk and all other brigades on the tracks."  Vranduk is a small settlement located at a strategic spot near the town of Zenica in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The film is set in the postwar period and focuses on the attempts to build (and rebuild) the country's transportation infrastructure.  The mountains of Bosnia and Herzegovina presented obstacles to transportation, and it was therefore necessary to blast a large number of tunnels.  This was dangerous work, and made all the more so by the extremely ambitious planning targets set by Yugoslavia's Communist leaderhip during this Stalinist phase of the country's history.

In "Život je naš," the focus is on the young worker Milan, played by Borislav Gvojić (1928-1995).

Milan leaves his home and joins the "youth brigades," the groups of young people who worked - some voluntarily, some much more reluctantly - on all kinds of infrastructure projects in the early years of postwar Yugoslavia.  The recruiters of the youth brigades try to persuade the skeptical population that all Yugoslavs - "Serbs, Croats and Muslims" can and should work together for the future of the country.  And not just Bosnians of various ethnicities are present - we see young ethnic Albanians from Macedonia greeting Croats from Zagreb and making new friendships.  Meanwhile, the engineers, political commissars and other "experts" meet to plan the work on the project.  The film repeatedly tells us that the youth brigades must work hard in order to prove that they are worthy of the example set by Comrade Tito.

The film takes care to show that the young workers are not only giving their energy to infastructure, new friendships and happy socialist songs.  They are also learning to read and write - a crucial improvement in a country in which illiteracy was still widespread at the end of World War II.  Here we see Milan using his free time to practice reading.

The film holds forth the youth brigades as a model not only to young people in Yugoslavia, but also to all young people across the world.  Thus, we see Africans and others from developing countries visiting the building site, foreshadowing Yugoslavia's later role as a leader of the nonaligned movement.

Tragedy strikes when Milan is injured operating one of the mechanical drills that make the building of tunnels possible.  But his dedication is greater than his pain, and so he rushes back to the building site instead of staying in the hospital so that he can help the brigade meet the deadline for the completion of the tunnel.  A grateful population thanks the young workers, as we see here, when the population of a village along the railroad line runs to "welcome the first train to our village."

"Život je naš" ends with the successful workers marching out of the tunnel and receiving the applause of their comrades as an upbeat socialist song plays triumphantly.  This film is notable for being the first feature film to focus not on the war effort, but on the reconstruction effort.  It is a great example of socialist realist cinema, aspiring to the ideal described by the Yugoslav author Aleksandar Vučo (1897-1985) and first president of the committee for cinematography of the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia (FNRJ): "The goals of our film art must be identical with the goals of the broad popular masses."

Sofka (1948)

After four movies glorifying the exploits of the Yugoslav Partisans, we arrive at the first post-1945 Yugoslav feature film based on other themes:  "Sofka," produced by Avala film in 1948.  Directed by Radoš Novaković (1915-1979), "Sofka" was based on the novel Nečista krv (Impure Blood), which was written by the Serb author Borisav Stanković (1876-1927) in 1910.  The title of the film stems from the name of the female protagonist in this classic novel of Serbian literary realism.

Radoš Novaković was the grandson of Stojan Novaković, a Serb prime minister in the early 20th century, historian, and president of the Royal Serb Academy.  Radoš Novaković, who had been very culturally active in interwar Yugoslavia and written extensively about culture, was a Partisan during World War II.

The lead role is played by Vera Gregorić (1926-2006).  As the film opens, we are transported to Vranje (in present-day southern Serbia) in January 1876, on the eve of its "liberation" from Ottoman rule.  Vranje was the birthplace of Stanković.

The mood in the movie remains dark and claustrophic until the Ottomans are expelled from the town relatively early in the movie.  The new atmosphere is symbolized with light and festivities at a fair, with the Serbian flag wafting against a partly cloudy sky as peasants dance a folk dance.  Yet all is not well in "free" Vranje, as is suggested by the sudden storm that disrupts the fair with rain and wind.  Much of the compelling nature of Stanković's novel in fact stems from his depiction of the harsh social realities of post-Ottoman Serbia.  Contrary to popular hopes and expectations, "national liberation" is not a panacea, socioeconomic problems abound, and daily life brings challenges and hardships.   One cannot help but wonder whether the director and the producer had the challenges of post-World War II Yugoslavia in mind when they chose to make this film. This is in many ways a timeless message, as the nations of Yugoslavia discovered again in the 1990s.

Like the rest of Vranje, Sofka is initially quite happy, as we see in this screenshot.

But Sofka slowly learns that her relatively wealthy family is in a state of economic decline, despite her mother's attempts to keep this knowledge from her.  In an attempt to help her family, Sofka agrees to be sold as a wife to the adolescent son of a rich merchant family.  Yet as her husband-to-be matures, he begrudges Sofka her participation in this trade.  Despite his love for Sofka, this makes the situation a bittersweet one, and Sofka is isolated from the environment in which she flourished as a young girl.

The film is notable for its portrayal of Serbian society immediately after Ottoman rule, and the language, customs and clothing all tell of a society making a journey from "Oriental" to European customs.  On the day of Sofka's wedding, she and her female acquaintances go for a ritual bath at the hamam, a scene depicted in great detail in the novel.

An inordinate amount of time is taken up by the wedding scenes in the film.  Here we see Sofka and her young groom eyeing each other with trepidation.

After the wedding, Novaković gives us an aerial shot of the wedding guests leaving the church, with Sofka and her family taking one path, while her own family goes its separate way.  In this thoroughly patriarchal society, Sofka now belongs completely to her new family, and her attachment is shown when she kisses the hand of her mother-in-law.  While her new family rejoices, Sofka looks miserable and stoic.  This is mirrored in the final scene of the film, when Sofka, clad in black, sits and silently cries in her loneliness.

This is a real historical costume drama, and it is certainly worth seeing for its place as the first postwar Yugoslav film not focused on the Partisans.  Yet it somewhat fails to persuade as a convincing drama, and is significantly below the standard of the first four post-1945 films.  "Nečista krv" was made into a film a second time many decades later in 1996.

"Sofka" is available on DVD.

Na svoji zemlji (1948)

"Slavica" was a quite decent feature film, but "Na svoji zemlji" (On Their Own Ground), the first effort by the Slovenian film studio Triglav film, is considerably stronger fare.  

Daniel J. Goulding tells us that the director, France Štiglic (1919-1993) was the first Yugoslav director after the Second World War to receive an international award.  Although the award "The Bronze Lion of San Marco," was for a documentary film, "Na svoji zemlji" confirms him as a strong director of feature films.  

This film is based on a novel by Slovene author Ciril Kosmač (1910-1980) for which he won the prestigious Slovenian Prešeren award in 1949.

Like "Slavica," "Na svoji zemlji" was made with the assistance of the Yugoslav Army.  Štiglic was also a Partisan veteran.  The film opens with a bucolic forest scene such as we would expect from a movie set in Slovenia.  A group of soldiers runs through the forest until they reach a cliff where they can look down at "our Baška grapa," a valley in western Slovenia.  There is a hilarious little dialogue very early in the movie when a peasant woman remarks that they have been let down before by the perfidious Anglo-American allies and must therefore rely on their Yugoslav and Soviet friends instead.  These Slovene peasants sure knew their geopolitics!


Speaking of geopolitics, this film was released in November 1948, about five months after the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia had the momentous falling out popularly known as the "Tito-Stalin" split.  It is therefore quite noteworthy that the film – which was quite possibly made before the split, contains a number of positive references to Stalin.  Indeed, here we see Stalin's and Tito's portraits hanging side-by-side in the improvised Partisan headquarters as the excited Partisans listen to the radio for news from other fronts.

We see at the outset of the film that many of the peasants are skeptical of the partisan movement, and that some of them even assist the occupying forces.  This skepticism is a recurring theme is a recurring theme of early partisan films, and the Partisans have to struggle to win the “hearts and minds” of the people to the cause of the “national liberation struggle.”

As Goulding writes, the title has several meanings.  It is about being in control of your own country and your own destiny, but also about the Slovene peasant’s ties to the land.  This is symbolized in a scene where the peasants take off their shoes and stand with their bare feet on the ground before being executed.

In this case, the Italians are the initial occupiers.  Although they are portrayed as being a bit sinister, there is an undercurrent of satire and ridicule.  Generally speaking, the Italian forces in partisan films are shown as being somewhat incompetent and buffoonish.  This contrasts with the standard portrayal of Germans as cruel, humorless and thoroughly efficient.  In “Na svojoj zemlji” the Italians face the problem that fascist rule in Italy is collapsing.  When an SS officer shows up and takes over local command, the contrast between the departing Italian commander and his German replacement is played out in both words and body language.  Here we see the Italian on the left and the German on the right.

In the SS officer’s view, all Slovenes are bandits and cannot be trusted.  As for the domestic Quisling forces, these are portrayed – as in later partisan films – as being a bunch of sadistic brutes who are often drunk.

Quite abruptly and without much explanation, the partisan forces take control of the valley.  We are treated to a stirring primordialist pep talk for mobilization in which one of the Partisans tells us that Slovenes have been around for 1,300 years and that they have been tossed between the big nations of because they live in “the heart of Europe.”  We then follow the Partisans as they fight to liberate Slovenia, forge ties to the other Yugoslav Partisans and seek to “liberate” Trieste, a city which Yugoslavia claimed for itself at the end of the Second World War.

A note on violence in these early partisan movies: there are combat scenes, some more stylized than others, as well as scenes in which the occupying forces (but never the Partisans) execute civilians but generally speaking we always never see blood or people dying.  We may see the Partisan machine gunner shooting at the approaching enemy, and afterwards the camera may pan over a battlefield strewn with bodies, but we rarely actually see people falling in combat.  When people do die on camera, it is of course in a highly artificial manner.  In a strange way, it is almost as if the Hays Production Code were in force in Yugoslavia.

There are two things in this film that made me think of more recent war films.  One of the story lines involves a mother who has already lost many sons to early European wars – this obviously makes the modern viewer think of Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”  And the winter scene in which the Partisans, cold and tired from a long march, are falling asleep in the forest reminded me of the final scene in “Stalingrad.”

The film ends on a typically heroic note as a group of male and female Partisans finally arrive at the coast, securing Slovenia an outlet on the Adriatic Sea.  While an old Partisan sheds a tear, a young boy who has joined up with the Partisans proclaims that he, too, can now be a free man in his own country.


"Na svoji zemlji" is available on DVD and online at Genspot.

Besmrtna mladost (1948)

"Besmrtna mladost" (Immortal Youth) was released by Avala in May 1948.  Like "Slavica," it is a partisan film, and as the title suggests it is again about youthful resistance to the occupation, but in this case the initial setting is urban Belgrade.  Irena Kolesar stars in this film as a member of a group of young people trying to gather weapons to assist the Partisans.

"Besmrtna mladost" was written and directed by Vojislav Nanović (1922-1983), who went on to direct many other films.  This first effort was of uneven quality and cannot quite match "Slavica" in terms of quality.  The choice of a female narrator who explains the goings on in the film to the viewer seems heavy-handed and tends to distract from the (melo)drama.  Those seeking a compelling Partisan drama set in Belgrade are better off vieiwng "Veliki i mali" (1956), which spins a good suspense.

"Besmrtna mladost" is widely available online, and was also issued on DVD in Serbia in 2008.

Živjeće ovaj narod (1947)

"Živjeće ovaj narod" (This People Will Live) is the first film produced by Jadran film studios in Zagreb.  Like "Slavica," it is a partisan film.  It is worth noting that whereas "Slavica" was made by the Belgrade studio Avala with a Croat director, "Živjeće ovaj narod" was made for the Zagreb studio Jadran with a Serb director.

"Živjeće ovaj narod" is set in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Second World War and deals with the love affair of a Croat and a Serb who join together to fight the occupying German forces.  Obviously this combination of romance and partisan themes mirrors "Slavica."

The screenplay for the film was written by Branko Ćopić (1915-1984), a Bosnian Serb Partisan veteran who a decade later wrote one of the most beloved children's books in Yugoslavia, Ježeva kuća (The Hedgehog's House).  Ćopić committed suicide in 1984.

I would love to tell you more about this film, but I have to date been unable to find a copy of it anywhere, though it allegedly exists on VHS and DVD.  If anyone knows where to find it, please let me know!