Hovering between memoir, docu-essay and drama, Serbian artist Iva Radivojević’s third characteristic opens with a cellphone name that adjustments every part. Eleven-year-old Lana (a proxy for Radivojević, performed by Natalija Ilinčić) receives the information that her grandfather has died; residence alone, she is advised by the speaker to speak that to her mom. The Bakelite clock on the wall says it’s exactly 10.36am on a Friday in 1992, “when the country of X was still a country”.
Friday 10.36am 1992 turns into a degree and a rift in time, by which the historic erupts into the private; a extra intimate companion piece, maybe, to the 2006 Romanian new wave classic 12.08 East of Bucharest. The information of Lana’s grandfather’s loss of life melds with the begin of the Yugoslavian battle (maybe the two occasions are linked, as he was a retired colonel). Suitcases are packed; Lana, in her reminiscence at all times sporting a pink Nike shell swimsuit, is pushed by her father to the airport, presumably to to migrate. With these dramatised fragments – in addition to ones of on a regular basis Serbian life – threaded collectively in a third-person narration later revealed to be hers, Lana appears to be reconstructing her personal exiled previous.
There’s one thing indifferent however obsessive about these remembrances, contained and framed like keepsakes by Radivojević in a good 4:3 ratio. Her focus on the each day – tailing strangers together with her mate Jova (Anton Augustinov), taking part in piano down the cellphone for one more buddy, her fascination with native junkie Vlada (Vasilije Zečević) – conveys the normal state of denial in the face of impending battle: “a pressure in the air”.
The stream of trivialities additionally reveals Lana’s must protect this misplaced actuality and, by her insistent commentary, give it significance; sifting by it breeds unusual slippages and correspondences. The western pop music that interrupts a Serbian live performance she watches with Vlada prefigures her new life. A narrative about her father’s mafia dealings dovetails together with her response to a TV manufacturing of Carmen she watches instantly after the fateful cellphone name; each comprise “just enough unbelievable drama to keep her entertained”. But the drama of Lana’s personal life stays off-screen and implied, at all times slipping between the fingers of this disquieting meditation on reminiscence and exile.
