GRBAVICA

Bosnia, 2006, 90 minutes, Colour.
Mirjna Karanovic, Luna Mijovic.
Directed by Jasmila Zbanic.

This is not the kind of film that many people have heard of. It is a modest first feature from a woman director in Sarajevo. It runs for just over 90 minutes. Yet now it has a place in film history as winner of the Golden Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, a surprise win given that there were so many other high-powered films in competition.

The director of the festival, Dieter Kosslick, when speaking about the film at the ceremony for the independent jury awards (before the announcement of its win) was almost in tears. The Ecumenical Jury then announced that it was its award winner.

Grbavica is the suburn of Sarajevo where single mother, Esma, a dressmaker who applies for a waitressing job at a local club, lives with her young teenage daughter, Sara. There are strong bonds between mother and daughter, although mother often loses her patience and Sara can be ungenerously cantankerous.

The film is powerful in its presentation of mother and daughter. Esma is played by veteran Serb actress,
who appeared in Kustirica’s Underground and has been a supporter of peace between Bosnia and Serbia for years. is Sara. There is a lot more to be learnt about the relationship towards the end of the film, some of which is quite shattering for the characters – and for the audience.

What makes Grbavica special is that it takes up the theme of how the wars in the Balkans affected the parent generation, with loss of family, brutality and abuse, loss of years. And it takes up the theme of what the consequences are for the young generation born during and after the conflicts. Sarajevo now looks and sounds like anywhere else. But there are deep wounds and scars. The club setting with its neo-gangsters and violence also reminds us of these consequences.

The film makes a strong appeal to audiences to appreciate that it is not just the experience of war while it is being waged that is traumatic – and that is traumatic enough – but it is the suffering in the aftermath that lingers. Outsiders, glad that hostilities cease, underestimate the long-term damage of war.

The film has an important women’s sensibility with the contributions of the writer-director (who was 30 when the film was made) and the two actresses.

1.Audience response to the history of the Balkans during the 1990s? The war, the atrocities? The women? The aftermath, ten years later? A film of insight, sympathy and empathy? Hope for the future? The healing of memories?

2.The universal appeal, the experience of war and the aftermath, the experience of women, coping, healing, rape and its consequences, survival? The losing of parents, the losing of children? Children and the future?

3.The Sarajevo settings, the title and the suburb of Sarajevo, the working-class suburb, the clubs, the centres, the building sites? Authentic atmosphere?

4.The musical score, the range of songs? The club sequences? The patriotic song for Bosnia at the end? The children singing it in hope for the future?

5.A women’s perspective, the writer-director, the actresses?

6.The opening, the focus on the faces of the women, their grief, silence? The contrast with the club, the music and the noise? Returning to the centre, for the women and their grants? The laughter, the sadness? The woman in charge? The possibilities for some kind of financial support? The final sequences – Esma and her tears?

7.The portrait of Esma? The audience not knowing she had been raped until the end of the film? Her presence at the centre, amongst the women, coping with grief? Dependent on the centre for financial support? Her going to the job interview, her luck, the boss and his hiring her – her later forgetting to put on the bet and his violence towards her? Her friend Sabine and the factory? Her working as a dressmaker at home? At home, single parent, Sarah(?? – Sera?) as a teenager, playing with her? Yet the tension about the trip, the cost, the certificate about her father and his reputation? Tensions at home, the meal, the trout and her buying it at the market for her daughter, the tantrum at the table, cutting the toenails and fingernails, the fish being cold? Awkwardness at home? At work, her friendship with the waitresses, the busty lady dancer? The boss and his visitors? The man giving her the lift, the attraction, the ride, the cup of coffee? The stories – and their both trying to identify parents at the morgue? Their former meeting? The grill and the barbeque, the kiss? The violence and her horror? The boss, the loan, his refusal? His aggressive attitude towards her? Sabine, care and anger? Checking Sarah? The slap? Leaving her daughter alone? The collection of money for the trip? Her anger with her daughter, the final revelation of the truth? Going to see her off on the trip, waving goodbye, the future?

8.The portrait of Sarah, teenager, playing and wrestling with her mother, kicking at school, the fights, the clash with the girls? Her teacher, the discussions, talking about her mother’s cancer? Her lies? Friend at school? The boy, fighting him, going off, talking? On the building site? The gun and the later threatening? The kiss? Love for her mother, the tantrums? Going shopping? Seeing Pedla and her fears, thinking her mother would leave? Her rudeness to Sabine? Shopping, the planning for the trip, her father and his reputation, telling the other girls he was a hero? The truth and its devastating effect? Her coping? Going on the trip? The next generation and the need for healing and memories, the search for origins?

9.Sabine and her work, Esma bringing her the dress at work, her showing it off? The issue of marriage and men? Her babysitting, Sarah’s antagonism? The truth, the collection for the trip?

10.The bosses, the clubs, the gangster’s style, the bets? His treatment of Esma? His treatment of Esma? His bodyguards? The guests, courtesy? The loan and his abuse of Esma for her forgetting the bet, bashing? The rival gangs and the threats to his life?

11.Pedla, his age, the job, historian studying economics, the war? Trying to identify his father’s body? Caring for his mother? His job, the bodyguard, the rivals and the plan to kill the boss? His partner? His taking Esma for rides, talking, the grill, the kiss? The crisis? His sisters?

12.The children, the post-war generation, the girls, at school, friendships? Their fathers and the deaths in their family?

13.The club, the life in the club, the customers, the drinks, the dancers, the women?

14.School, fights in the school grounds, the teacher and the concern? The interviews with Esma?

15.The background of tragedy – and the possibilities for hope?