An Ordinary Warrior and His Inevitable Defeat: Representation in Post-Yugoslav Cinema

Abstract

This chapter examines the contemporary post-Yugoslav war film, contextualising it historically, and in light of the emergence of new film paradigms across post-Yugoslav territories. Tendencies such as the cinemas of ‘self-victimisation’ or ‘self-Balkanisation’ described by Jurica Pavičić (Postjugoslavenski film. Stil i ideologija. Zagreb: Hrvatsko filmski savez, 2011) are examined, wherein films are characterised by, respectively, a rediscovered nationalism and a sense of victimhood, or the confirmation of stereotypes of barbarism and violence. Murtic then considers the notion of ‘normalisation’ (Pavičić, Postjugoslavenski film. Stil i ideologija. Zagreb: Hrvatsko filmski savez, 2011) and its creation of an integrative space facilitating reflection on war and post-war narratives across common ground, as well as in the emergence of female directors constructing an alternative to patriarchal societies across post-Yugoslavia. Taking as its central case study, Kristian Milić’s The Living and the Dead (2007), a film which displays all the dominant characteristics of the post-Yugoslav war genre, it examines the demilitarisation of men in the context of the historical entrenchment of militaristic discourse(s) and the predominantly anti-war stance of post-Yugoslav war cinema.