AN EPISODE IN THE LIFE OF AN IRON PICKER

Bosnia, 2013, 75 minutes, Colour.
Senada Alimanovic, Nazif Mujic.
Directed by Danis Tanovic.

Danis Tanovic has made fine films like the Oscar-winning No Man’s Land. his take on war in the Balkans and his version of Kieslowski’s screenplay, Hell.
This is a brief, almost documentary-like tale of a Bosnian iron-picker, a collector of scrap mettle. It suggests a cross between and the realism of Ken Loach and his social concern and Mike Leigh and his intense films about families.

It is one of those attention-to-specific-detail films, mother cooking, small daughters watching TV and squabbling, father sawing and chopping firewood, the demolition of a car for scrap, driving it to sales. We are immersed in the lives of very ordinary and poor people.

The poverty is seen most drastically when the wife has had a miscarriage and is turned away from hospital because the family has no insurance.

Authorities’ are letter-of-law and hard-hearted. Eventually, getting some help with the false document, the wife has the needed surgery. The husband scours snow-covered tips for more metal. Their power is cut off. The lives of the poor.

A grim a slice of life with a little happiness to finish.

1. The work of the director, in the Balkans, a 21st century portrait of life and hardships for the poor?

2. Winter, the snow, the village, the cold house, the forest and the branches, the demolition area, sales, hospital, surgery, power cuts? Issues for survival?

3. The realism, the attention to detail, the effect? For the portrait of the family, the father and his work, the cars, chopping trees in the woods, chopping firewood, his love for his wife, for his daughters, the girls noisy and squabbling, playing and shouting with much energy, the wife, her size, pregnancy, cooking, taking ill, the miscarriage, going to the hospital, desperate?

4. The hospitals, the refusal to let the wife in, the lack of insurance documents, the nurses obeying orders, the doctors also, the director of the hospital giving instructions they were not to be admitted?

5. The help, the card, the admittance, the operation and its success, the medicines?

6. The attitude of the poor, grateful, a touch servile towards authorities?

7. The scouring of the tip, saving the iron, breaking down the second car, the money, paying for the medicine, for the electricity to come back on?

8. The end, the power coming on, the children watching the DVD, the wife and her hopes for recovery, the warmth and the house? How different will the future be?

9. A significant film for portrayal of harsh life in the Balkans?