When father was away on business (1985) - Emir Kusturica

The appreciable Balkan director Emir Kusturica continues his film production with this feature, his second, barring a television film made a year earlier. Thus, four years after his successful debut Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981), this new exercise is ready, which, like his prior work, contains all the elements and main guidelines that make this a fully identifiable and coherent piece as a work of its maker. This time Kusturica is not the writer of the script, but Abdulah Sidran, co-author of the script in his debut, is responsible for that task now. Both authors configure the story of Malik, a child from the Yugoslavia of its ruler Tito, a land at a time of great political, social and economic instability, with foreign communism invading the Balkans, and in which, when his father is sentenced to exile because of politically dangerous ideas, the infant's mother tells him that his father is absent for a long business trip. Repeating some, or many of the edges of the initial debut, the picture continues to explore the world, the environment surrounding the filmmaker, shows us his vision of his world through the perspective of the child, which has in football an activity that serves as a distraction and escape. Another work that deserves its Bosnian creator, with which he continued collecting awards -this is a Palme d'Or at Cannes winning-picture by the way- and reaching notoriety and visibility in the international film scene.

                   

Kusturica is a filmmaker who cuts to the chase, which hides nothing, showing his art from the very beginning, from the very first image, and so from the first frame, having read the dedication of a historic tale of love, we observe country images, simple images. We see, as in his previous film, the nearby-to-the-field and folk sequences delineating the beginning of the film, his trademark, proximity, simplicity and manners, are all there for us again, naked, with no ornaments, from the beginning, without frills or distractions. The manners, the nearest simplicity is reflected when we see peasants singing a cheerful and simple theme of Spanish ascendancy, again similarly back to the previous picture of the filmmaker, the musical element is also closely linked to what it represents; and again a musical element of Mediterranean origins, notticeable from the start. The last nod to the manners is plotted with the final sequence of the wedding, humor and simplicity of the field will meet for the last time. Kusturica then does not waste time, and one of the first sequences we hear is our infant protagonist talking about their reality, austerity punished those lands as Yugoslavia was already ceasing to exist, to fragment in the Balkan nations we now know, and we see this is in Malik (Moreno D'E Bartolli), narrating, with his childlike innocence, how his mother had to do a trick in exchange for certain state benefits.

That austerity is eloquently portrayed by acquiring something as banal as a lipstick as great item, a negligible element becomes an almost sumptuous element. We see how the Bosnian filmmaker continues along the roads started in his film debut, again plotted us in his Sarajevo, his Yugoslavia, wobbly and chaotic, where poverty, austerity, fear pervade a land where even breathing can cause panic, where freedom is becoming more and more fenced. Also, nothing escapes Kusturica’s portrait of his environment, strong and very present political aspect could not go unnoticed, being readily shown in the father’s newspaper, where main communists are displayed; it creates the atmosphere of those days, Stalin very present in the daily life of citizens, with the repression submitting anyone who challenges invader western communism. Children honoring Tito, Yugoslavia cracking, the political context is inseparable from the work of the Bosnian, and of course, the repression is tenacious, one of the greatest figures portrayed, is how can the existence of an individual -or part of it- be ruined, for some ideas that he or she may have; or even worse, for some comment that anyone can make about it. In that dreadful repressive world, as any which has experienced the fall of the basic freedoms, including thought, that's just a hard and sad reality.

Again, the good Emir in his initial stage shows, tells us what he wants to convey somehow sweetened by the prospect of protagonist-observer; again, as in the earlier film, a young man (a child this time) will be the vehicle through which the story will flow to us. Of course, skillful Kusturica does not use this as a mere mean, as a common device used to sublimate story; this is probably a way to channel experiences and feelings of the director himself, while it may also try a narrative resource, or a union of both reasons. In this Balkan world, and always from the nearby children approach, education goes hand in hand with aviation, where a remarkable aviator woman is praised; that severe duality is already flowing and diagramming symbolism, while the child, like everybody, tiltes his head in amazement at the sky. The plane crosses the sky, while the tender and well-known waltz flows, which will accompany us throughout the film, while everybody is fascinated watching the show, as if they were watching a cinema. Kusturica withdraws one waltz particular passage, makes it a transmission element, and the musical accompaniment, by the way, gives indeed the picture an effect, wraps it in a warm and tender nostalgic halo, gives it both the nostalgia and a certain innocence. The director thus prints us a sweet, tender, innocent tone, but now, and compared to the previous feature, multiplied by the lens of an infant, a child; but beware: the film, for innocuous has nothing.

I say this because although the film is shown through the eyes of Malik, it would be wrong -an easy mistake to indequate palates- to think that this is a gentle, harmless child picture; not at all. For innocuous, as stated, the film has little or nothing, because child approach does nothing but generate a stark contrast between the child and his playful vision, and what actually it frames, with that hostile world that lies behind this apparent safety, with that repressive and chilling reality. Now, what we actually find as novelty is the protagonist including voiceover, giving it much greater presence in the film, and also strengthens all the above mentioned: innocence, tenderness somewhat slipped through the figure of our rookie protagonist and witness. We could not miss something in our beloved filmmaker, one element of his own particular language, that is, his very particular and pleasant humor, his hilarity, his humor never fails to be evident in his work. In this case, irreverent Malik will draw some smile in our faces, sniffing under the table, watching her adulterous father play under the skirt of a woman and setting fire to the garment, but not avoiding adultery from Mesa (Predrag Manojlovic), his lecherous father. Another element that felt akin to the previous feature, is romance, childhood romance serving the protagonist to enter into life; before were the teenager and his prostitute, now is the tender child romance, Malik and his girlfriend, discovering each other, a romance that breaks abruptly, making them grow and mature.

All these elements, combined, orchestrated the way Kusturica knows, articulated and structured due form, shape the oeuvre of an author we can feel not in vain considered to be the most brilliant exponent of what some call the Balkans generation of filmmakers. And it is always as simple as nice, for the admirer of his art, to notice and perceive the feelings it conveys, the Sarajevo image that he reaches to us, his particular environment and context of his circumstances, all what he gets to caught, to print. But most remarkable is that Emir does not get that effect in one single picture, but appreciating his work together, we can cherish in his whole oeuvre the same feeling, the same effect in more than one of his creations. This becomes, of course, greater coherence, artistic cohesion, a powerful unit in the complete production of Kusturica, which is very significant, that speaks a lot about an artist who has well defined guidelines. The camera, still something indecisive, a little shy, will not dare to let go of completely, is learning to lose that shyness, that timidity of which he would get rid completely up to reach expertise and the technical tricks of staging with which then Balkan filmmaker would delight critics and audiences.

In another important sequence we see Malik running away one night, but sleepwalking, under the darkest night sky, the dream-element, also one of the constants in Kusturica, is captured, but is still traced briefly. We nottice then a new parallel or proximity to Kusturica's first feature film, and that is, if in the first picture we saw the inclinations, the attraction of young Dino by hypnotic practices, now we see the metaphysical element portrayed in somnambulism, sleepwalking moving the infant Malik. There is little doubt then, if any, of that element, of that aspect, the metaphysical, is not a mere pose or plot element in Kusturica, is something which is sensed as rooted in him, as it will be shown in subsequent deliveries in his future features. Perhaps as an autobiographical nod we can see some aspects of the film, such as circumcision, ritualistic act representing growth -and the burden of Jewish attribution involved, knowing the religious shock is another constant in Emir’s films-, longing and sadness by the absence of the father, the lust of that parent, his dad, all of these in his particular sketched outline. Developing other obvious parallel, if in the film already mentioned, his debut, that hypnotism was an exhaust point, now we have sports, football, soccer slipping as a transportation, escape valve, as something-alien to all that complex reality; music and hypnotism before, football and sleepwalking now; indeed, between the two films we can find more than one relationship.

There is a sequence, however, that can summarize much of everything so far discussed. Parents almost killing each other, fighting, violence makes the little Malik mourn, while the eldest son laughs to see the sordid spectacle, just to end the 4 of them making music and having a good time all together in bed. Amidst the gallantry, amid the squalor, love persists, love will always find the way to grow up in the most inhospitable location. Similarly, the film ends with an eloquent frame, and also eloquent sequence: after the suicide attempt of the mother (embodying tremendous impotence), while Yugoslavia wins a football match on the radio, Malik turns to flee in a sleepwalking trance, mechanically walks toward a sunrise, and he turns, he looks at us, as never on the picture, looks at the lens, looks at us and smiles in front of the rising new day. The image speaks for itself. Also, there are certain figures, certain frames, which by its composition, are reminiscent to Do you remember Dolly Bell?; brotherhood between the two features is flagrant, and anyone who has viewed both films will probably be able to recognize those frames, "loose" frames. Simple shots that show the nearness of a film to another; chronologically close, and most importantly, close from the point of view of the creator and his language, his expressiveness. Kusturica continues his particular film-creative-path; his trademarks, always well-defined; his style, purging itself and becoming more exquisite. Good film, from an
extraordinary filmmaker.