GLOBAL CINEMA Dislocated Screen Memory Narrating Trauma in Post-Yugoslav Cinema Dijana Jelača Dislocated Screen Memory GLOBAL CINEMA Edited by Katarzyna Marciniak, Anikó Imre, and Áine O’Healy The Global Cinema series publishes innovative scholarship on the transnational themes, industries, economies, and aesthetic elements that increasingly connect cinemas around the world. It promotes theoretically transformative and politically challenging projects that rethink film studies from cross- cultural, comparative perspectives, bringing into focus forms of cinematic production that resist nationalist or hegemonic frameworks. Rather than aiming at comprehensive geographical cover- age, it foregrounds transnational interconnections in the production, distribution, exhibition, study, and teaching of film. Dedicated to global aspects of cinema, this pioneering series combines origi- nal perspectives and new methodological paths with accessibility and coverage. Both “global” and “cinema” remain open to a range of approaches and interpretations, new and traditional. Books published in the series sustain a specific concern with the medium of cinema but do not defensively protect the boundaries of film studies, recognizing that film exists in a converging media environ- ment. The series emphasizes a historically expanded rather than an exclusively presentist notion of globalization; it is mindful of repositioning “the global” away from a US-centric/Eurocentric grid and remains critical of celebratory notions of “globalizing film studies.” Katarzyna Marciniak is a professor of Transnational Studies in the English Department at Ohio University. Anikó Imre is an associate professor of Critical Studies in the School of Cinematic Arts at the Uni- versity of Southern California. Áine O’Healy is a professor of Modern Languages and Literatures at Loyola Marymount University. Published by Palgrave Macmillan: Prismatic Media, Transnational Circuits: Feminism in a Globalized Present By Krista Geneviève Lynes Transnational Stardom: International Celebrity in Film and Popular Culture Edited by Russell Meeuf and Raphael Raphael Silencing Cinema: Film Censorship around the World Edited by Daniel Biltereyst and Roel Vande Winkel The Education of the Filmmaker in Europe, Australia, and Asia Edited by Mette Hjort The Education of the Filmmaker in Africa, the Middle East, and the Americas Edited by Mette Hjort Behind the Screen: Inside European Production Cultures Edited by Petr Szczepanik and Patrick Vonderau New Documentaries in Latin America Edited by Vinicius Navarro and Juan Carlos Rodríguez Global Melodrama: Nation, Body, and History in Contemporary Cinema Carla Marcantonio Dislocated Screen Memory: Narrating Trauma in Post-Yugoslav Cinema Dijana Jelacaˇ Dislocated Screen Memory Narrating Trauma in Post-Yugoslav Cinema Dijana Jelacaˇ Palgrave macmillan DISLOCATED SCREEN MEMORY Copyright © Dijana Jelacaˇ 2016 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2016 978-1-137-51577-3 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission. In accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 2016 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of Nature America, Inc., One New York Plaza, Suite 4500, New York, NY 10004-1562. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. ISBN 978-1-349-55887-2 E-PDF ISBN: 978–1–137–50253–7 DOI: 10.1057/9781137502537 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jelaca, Dijana, 1979– Dislocated screen memory : narrating trauma in Post-Yugoslav cinema / Dijana Jelaca. pages cm. — (Global cinema) Summary: “The links between cinema and war machines have long been established. At the same time, cinema represents an often overlooked, yet crucial channel of tackling the difficult themes of post-traumatic memory. This book explores the range, form, and valences of trauma narratives that permeate the most notable narrative films about the breakup of Yugoslavia. It examines how film plays a part in coming to terms with the traumatic effects that wars have on communities, by ways of forming an archive of publically circulated, mass-mediated cultural memories”—Provided by publisher. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Psychic trauma in motion pictures. 2. Memory in motion pictures. 3. Motion pictures—Social aspects—Former Yugoslav republics. I. Title. PN1995.P7828J47 2015 791.436561—dc23 2015019822 A catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library. To lost childhoods, across borders, and to families, across oceans This page intentionally left blank Contents List of Figures ix Acknowledgments xi Introduction: War Trauma as Screen Memory 1 1 Yugoslavia’s Wars, Cinema, and Screen Trauma 27 2 Unsettling Empathies: Screen, Gender, and Traumatic Memory 59 3 Happily Sick: Trauma, Nation, and Queer Affect 103 4 Post-Yugoslav Heritage Cinema and the Futurity of Nostalgia 137 5 Youth (Sub)Cultures and the Habitus of Postmemory 183 Conclusion: The Child, the Quiet War Film, and the Power of Alternative Scenarios 219 Notes 239 Bibliography 249 Index 261 This page intentionally left blank Figures 1.1 Re-inscribing the bridge on the Drina as a site of trauma by creating a cinematic memorial (For Those Who Can Tell No Tales,screengrabs) 46 1.2 Warring masculinities, perpetrator trauma, and genre overtones (The Living and the Dead, The Enemy, The Blacks,screengrabs) 55 1.3 Levitating in diaspora (Someone Else’s America,screengrab) 58 2.1 The sequence that marks the return of the repressed (PrettyVillagePrettyFlame,screengrabs) 79 2.2 The panning shot of silent women, arriving at a close-up of Esma (Grbavica,screengrabs) 83 2.3 Sara shedding the postmemory of trauma (Grbavica, screen grab) 89 2.4 Dream, repetition, melancholia (Snow,screengrabs) 98 3.1 The iron door closes, and the screen returns to a queer time and place (Fine Dead Girls, screen grab) 115 3.2 Johnny and Marilyn in a queer time and place (Marble Ass) 117 3.3 A “traditional” queer wedding (Go West, screen grab) 125 3.4 A trans-ethnic security detail (Parade, screen grab) 134 4.1 The staging of the upside down scene (Three Tickets to Hollywood, screen grab) 145 4.2 Ancient hatreds or the return of the repressed? (The Knife, screen grab) 155 4.3 This story has no end (Underground, screen grab) 177 5.1 Multiplying visions (Tilva Ros, screen grab) 195 x LIST OF FIGURES 5.2 Club cultures and the habitus of postmemory (Clip, screen grab) 206 5.3 An immigrant youth subculture and disavowal (Southern Scum Go Home! screen grab) 208 5.4 Video-flashbacks of trauma (Children of Sarajevo, screen grabs) 214 C.1 The child, aligned with the eye of the cannon, which shatters the cinematic frame (So Hot Was the Cannon, screen grabs) 226 C.2 An encounter between war machines and the cinema of attractions (The Silent Sonata, © Staragara Production, photo by Mitja Licen)ˇ 231 Acknowledgments This book would most certainly not have materialized had it not been for the personal and intellectual support of many incredible people. Foremost gratitude goes to the editors of Palgrave’s Global Cinema Series—Anikó Imre, Katarzyna Marciniak, and Aine O’Healy. They have been incredi- bly supportive and encouraging from the start, as well as a source of great inspiration with the work that they do as scholars of transnational media studies. Thank you, also, to my editors at Palgrave, Erica Buchman and Shaun Vigil, for all their diligence and help. I am grateful to the anony- mous reviewers, for their through-provoking feedback and constructive criticism. I wish to thank all my students—too numerous to name—at UMass Amherst, St. John’s University, and New York-St. Petersburg Insti- tute of Linguistics, Cognition and Culture for being an attentive audience and excellent participants in many discussions that have found their way into this book. The work presented here initially took shape as my doctoral dissertation at UMass Amherst, and I want to thank my committee—Leda Cooks, Anne Ciecko, Lisa Henderson, and James Hicks—for their dedi- cated attention to the early stages of this work, as well as for their continued support. Moreover, a number of friends and colleagues at UMass greatly influenced my thinking about these, at times difficult, themes: Claudio Moreira, Demetria Shabazz, Sut Jhally, Erica Scharrer, and James Young. Liliana Herakova and Emily Polk have been incredibly supportive friends ever since we started our doctoral program together a number of years ago, and I could not be happier to have shared the experience with them. I also want to thank Asma Barlas for illuminating conversations and for her astute recognition of the threads that bind us across imagined divi- sions. Gratitude also goes to my close friend and frequent collaborator Danijela Lugaric,´ for being an attentive listener and a patient friend who gives insightful advice on any topic. Likewise, another dear friend and fre- quent collaborator, Kristin Hole, has been a source of helpful insight and critical reflection from the start. She and the rest of our writing support group—Anne Cunningham and Sean Springer—have tirelessly read early drafts of the chapters ahead, and I am very thankful for that. I also want to thank Maša Kolanovic´ for her friendship, support, and wisdom, and xii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Blanka Blagojevic´ for her humor and transatlantic presence.