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."