SOME METHODOLOGICAL CONCERNS REGARDING THE STUDY OF BALKANISM IN CINEMA Mario Slugan University of Chicago 1

It was in the early 1990s that Balkanism came to the attention of Slavic studies. As early as 1990, Milica Bakid-Hayden drew on Edward Said’s Orientalism to describe the rhetoric employed by many a Slovenian and Croatian politician and writer to discuss the Yugoslav crisis of the 1980s. Regardless of whether Balkanism was treated as a variation of Orientalism (Bakid-Hayden and Hayden 1992, Bakid-Hayden 1995) or as a rhetorical paradigm specific to the Balkans (Todorova 1994), Orientalism has remained the conceptual paradigm behind Balkanism well after the most detailed analysis of the phenomenon has been written (Todorova 1997). According to Todorova, Balkanism dominated western perceptions of the region from the early twentieth century until the beginning of World War II and then again from the demise of the Soviet Union onward. During the communist era, the Balkans had been an indistinguishable part of the monolith of Eastern Europe. After 1989, the Balkans reappeared as the ‘Other’ of the newly forming Central Europe. It was often connected with the notion of Balkanization, denoting the fragmentation of viable larger political entities as well as the return to the primitive, backward and tribal. While Todorova is careful not to identify Balkanism as a mere variation of Orientalism, both discourses serve to reinforce a western style of domination through description, learning and authorization of viewpoints. Todorova lists a number of features that distinguish the Balkans from the Orient: central among them, the manner in which the construction of Balkan identities takes place. Self-perception plays a critical role in shaping the image of the Balkans. A classical example is given by Bakid-Hayden (1995) and Slavoj Žižek (1999) who identify how, depending on who is asked, the answer to ‘Where do the Balkans begin?’ always slides south-west. For Slovenes the Balkans begin with the Croats, for Croats with the Serbs, for Serbs with the Kosovars and so on. Thus, cultural production from within the Balkans shapes Balkanism as much as cultural production from without. Almost immediately, purely on the narrative level, ’s opus presents itself as an obvious choice for the study of Balkanism. Most of Kusturica’s internationally distributed feature films are concerned with subject matter characteristic of the former-Yugoslav region. His Sjedaš li se Dolly Bell?/Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (1981) and Otac na službenom putu/When Father Was Away on Business (1985) tell tales of provincial growing up under a communist regime. Dom za vešanje/Time of Gypsies (1989) and Crna mačka, beli mačor/Black Cat, White Cat (1998) focus on the most exotic of European ethnic minorities – the Roma. Underground (1995a), not only because of the ambitious scope of the narrative depicting more than 50 years of history of Yugoslavia, has become locus classicus for the study of Balkanism. Život je čudo/ (2004) explicitly addresses the wars of the 1990s, events paving the way for the reintroduction of Balkanism. Finally, Zavet/ (2007) returns to the provincial. However, having in mind the exemplary status Underground has in the study of Balkan cinema (Dakovid 1997; Elsaesser 2003; Ferreira 2006; Galt 2007; Gocid 2001; Gourgouris 2002; Homer 2007, 2009; Iordanova 2001, 2002; Krstid 1999, Keene 2001; Levi 2007; Longinovid 2005; Mazaj 2008; Pejkovid 2009; Rivi 2007; Žižek 1997a, 1997b) it would appear as a legitimate concern that there remains little to be said about Underground, at least as far as its relation to the alleged ethnic bias and Balkanism is concerned. In fact, in a recent anonymous review of a paper of mine (Slugan 2011) the reviewer expresses the following concern:

“When people write about Balkan cinema, the one they inevitably write about is Kusturica, as if no other worthy regional examples exist (or as if no one has ever seen any films from the region other than his). *…+ Kusturica as stereotypical “Balkan” is a bit overdone and stereotypical in and of itself as a framework.”

Admittedly, the reviewer’s frustration with yet another paper on Kusturica is understandable. However, his or her implicit call for the expansion of the canon and the application of the existing methodological framework to it seems to be curious. The reason is that there has been considerable work done on other authors and movies such as Milčo Mančevski’s 1994 Before the Rain (Longinovid 2005; Iordanova 2001; Mazaj 2008; Rosenstone 2000), Theodorus Angelopoulus 1995 To vlemma tou 2

Odyssea/Ulysses’ Gaze (Iordanova 2001; Horton 1997), Srđan Dragojevid’s 1996 Lepa sela lepo gore/Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (Krstid 2000a; Levi 2007; Mazaj 2008; Dakovid 2003), Dragojevid’s 1998 Rane/Wounds (Bjelid 2005; Iordanova 2001; Krstid 2000b), Goran Paskaljevid’s 1998 Bure baruta/Balkan Cabaret (Bjelid 2005; Longinovid 2005; Iordanova 2001), or Danis Tanovid’s 2001 Ničija Zemlja/No Man’s Land (Horton 2002; Mazaj 2008; Van Watson 2008). It would appear then that the reviewer would like either more attention paid to these other works or perhaps he or she would prefer the study of Balkanism to be applied to new films altogether. Effectively, one and the same reply can be made to both preferences. If we are to discuss Balkanism on a mass scale then we have to turn to authors whose movies enjoy the widest circulation and which are not seen exclusively by academics, film critics, and perhaps festival audiences. It is indeed the case that Balkanism is worth discussing only as a mass phenomenon with high level of diffusion within the general population for why would anyone worry if stereotypical views of the Balkans are held by a handful of people, even if they are academics (one might even say especially if they are academics)? And the best benchmark for this diffusion would obviously be the number of people, both domestic and foreign, who have seen the movies in question. The authors such as Angelopuolus, Dragojevid, Mančevski, Paskaljevid and Tanovid have certainly, unlike other directors from the region, enjoyed some regular foreign distribution. Yet, when compared to Kusturica, with the exception of Tanovid, their foreign audience numbers pale in comparison.i With that in mind, one could even make an argument that, again with the exception of Ničija zemlja, the aforementioned authors and their movies enjoy critical attention which, relative to the attention they command among the audiences, is even greater than that of Kusturica. As far as the further expansion of the canon is concerned I could easily apply the Balkanism framework to movies such as Knjiga rekorda Šutke/The Shutka Book of Records (Manid 2005), Nebo sateliti/Celestial Body (Nola 2001), or Nož/The Knife (Lekid 1999). I could argue that the first turns the economical plight of Roma living in derelict Skopje neighborhood Šutka into orchestration of their exoticness for foreign amusement. The second could serve as an example of how the circular narrative inscribes the Balkans as the region in which war recurs eternally. The third can easily be seen as an essentialist depiction of Muslims as barbaric warmongers. Yet all of this would amount to nothing more than an exercise of the Balkanist framework, because none of these movies enjoyed any significant distribution outside of former Yugoslavia if they enjoyed any at all. The expansion of the cannon of Balkan cinema, an effort legitimized by the aesthetic or representative value of a given film and accomplished in Iordanova’s The Cinema of the Balkans (2006), is a procedure substantially different from the expansion of the canon of Balkan cinema for the study of Balkanism. The latter can be legitimized primarily with data on substantial audience numbers for both foreign and domestic distribution, with aesthetic considerations coming second. If we now return to the special place Underground holds in the analyses focusing on the problem of Balkanism we will see that the authors of these analyses have either made their arguments before Život has been filmed (Gocid 2001; Goulding 2002; Horton 2000; Iordanova 2002) or have deliberately not addressed that particular movie sticking with the old Underground example (Ferreira 2006; Galt 2006; Homer 2007, 2009; Levi 2007, Longinovid 2005; Mazaj 2008; Pejkovid 2009; Rivi 2007). The failure to discuss Život in the analysis of Balkanism in Kusturica’s work, a film which has enjoyed distribution wider than Underground and has won the Best European Union Film, the Best Balkan Film award, and the Cinema Prize of the French National Educational System (given at Cannes) in 2005 is highly problematic.ii Another reason is that it is this movie, and not Underground, which reiterates the stereotypical image of the Balkans well after Žižek (1997a, 1997b), Todorova (1997), Iordanova (2001, 2002) and Bjelid and Savid (2002) had warned against perils of such representations. By the time the filming of Život took place, Kusturica had been made well aware of this kind of academic criticism of his work through discussions and interviews. Therein lays another reason to analyze Život as a response to Balkanism. 3

It has to be admitted that the premiere of Underground in the wake of Dayton Agreement was bound to produce much more controversy than the distribution of Život which took place well after the . However, Underground never explicitly addressed the war in . This conflict, on the other hand, provides the backbone for Život’s narrative of two lovers whose respective ethnicities are pitted against each other. Moreover, the analysis I develop elsewhere (Slugan 2011) reveals that Život, contrary to what Gocid (2005) might claim, by no means paints a neutral depiction of the Bosnian War. With all of this in mind, I believe Život should take precedent over Underground in the study of Balkanism. Another point with regard to my anonymous reviewer remains to be made. The study of Balkanism is by no means a neutral undertaking. It is a political project the goal of which is to put an end to a particular discourse about a particular geopolitical entity. It certainly commands more academic merit than the alternative it tries to dispel – in thanks to a stricter methodology and the abandonment of essentialist claims – but this is not to say it has no ideological slant or that it is methodologically flawless. Thus, insisting on the analysis of “all cultural commentators from the ex- Yugoslav region” in the Underground debate with regards to their ideological and national slant, while leaving all other commentators of the hook, as my reviewer would have it, is nonsensical. In fact there is no value-free cultural commentary, every cultural commentator has something to gain or lose in this debate (or any for that matter). The very fact of entering into a cultural debate is always done with a particular prize in mind, if nothing else, then that of cultural capital. With that in mind, our primary concern should be whether a given cultural commentator cherry-picks the evidence in favor of a particular line of argument, and if he or she does, then the analysis can be made in the above key. However, because I am more interested in methodological issues here, my analysis will focus on a type of cherry-picking I find particularly problematic in the context of the study of Balkanism – preferential treatment of extra-textual evidence. Kusturica’s personal attitudes towards his Bosnian origins as well as his conversion to Christian Orthodoxy have also proven to be significant for study of Balkanism. In his interviews Kusturica has often resorted to the rhetoric of tribalism, repeatedly describing the events in the former-Yugoslavia in terms of unbridled and eternal aggressions and relativizing issues of responsibility by relegating them to the sphere of nature itself. These considerations have often been taken into account when assessing his works. Extra-textual evidence such as this is perfectly legitimate because we are studying the reception of particular movies in an overall cultural sphere in which the separation between the author, the text and the audience does not play the same role as it does in academia.iii However, it is one thing to analyze public reception and quite another to produce scholarly analysis of a given film. Whereas in the former case it is reasonable to see why the figure of the author would influence the everyday spectator’s apprehension of the film, in the latter it is certainly no novelty to frown at biographism and psychologism as tools of critical analysis. And yet extra-textual evidence has often been used either to discuss issues the film remains silent about or even to argue against what the intra-textual evidence points to. The best or better yet, the worst example of this is certainly Žižek’s analysis of Underground (1997a, 1997b). The gist of Žižek’s argument is as follows: by exposing the obscene of the Communist regime, and by doing so from a cynical, ironically distant position, Underground exposes the obscene of the neo-fascist nationalism or “the libidinal economy of the Serbian ethnic slaughter in Bosnia: the pseudo-Bataillean trance of excessive expenditure, the continuous mad rhythm of drinking-eating- singing-fornicating.” (Žižek 1997b) Nobody would dispute that Underground exposes the obscene of Communism. Marko and Crni of the first part of the movie who masquerade their grand larceny, bar fights, and philandering as Partisan resistance efforts are obvious proof of that. No less is Marko of the second part of the movie who keeps a throng of people in his underground cellar, his brother included, feeding them lies that the outside war rages on and making profit off their weapons manufacture. The 4

methodological problem here is not in the claim about the Communist obscene but in the manner in which the leap in the discussion of the modern Communist obscene to the claims about the post- modern neo-fascist obscene is made. In order to make this jump Žižek recalls a comment made by Kusturica in an interview to Cahiers du cinema:

“In this region, war is a natural phenomenon, It is like a natural catastrophe, like an earthquake which explodes from time to time. In my film, I tried to clarify the state of things in this chaotic part of the world. It seems that nobody is able to locate the roots of this terrible conflict.” (Kusturica 1995b: 69)

Žižek’s reasoning must be something like the following: because, according to Kusturica, the war eternally recurs in the Balkans, the obscene of modern Communism represented in the film and underlying one war (World War II) should be understood as a stand-in for the obscene of postmodern Nationalism underlying another – the one taking place in Bosnia between April 1992 and December 1995. In other words, any regime in the region has basically the same underlying obscene waiting to explode. The first objection that can be made is that if indeed there is a continuous underlying obscene which bursts out at various points in history, then Žižek falls into the same trap he chastises everybody else of doing – the essentialization of the Balkans. However, what interests me more is how Žižek’s argument fares when confronted with intra- textual evidence. If we watch the film carefully we will see that the only references film makes to Yugoslav Secession Wars of 1990s do not unequivocally point to Bosnia. It is unclear where exactly the war zone in which Crni, one of the film’s two main protagonists, leads his own personal militia is situated (Croatia or Bosnia). Moreover, the geography of the flat plains and the burned down Christian church would suggest it is Slavonia, a region in the east of Croatia that is depicted, rather than mountainous and dominantly Muslim Bosnia of the time. Second, and much more to the point, the tone of the third part of the film which takes place during the 1990s is quite the opposite from the first part in which the Communist obscene primarily comes to fore. The Communist obscene – the never-ending eating-drinking-singing-fornicating – was depicted in a jocular manner, whereas by the time Crni burns down the whole village in question and unknowingly executes Marko the somber and macabre tone has long since replaced jest. It becomes readily apparent then how Žižek not only assumes things film never explicitly addresses (the Bosnian war), but also blatantly disregards the film itself when evidence point in the different direction. For how else could Žižek hold that the obscene of the 1940s and 1970s Communism stands for the obscene of 1990s Neo-fascism when the latter is not even depicted in reference to what Žižek connects it to (the Bosnian war), and when the tone in which the two are depicted are at the opposite sides of the spectrum. In conclusion, three main theses of this paper are worth articulating once again: 1) the expansion of the canon must be substantiated by proof of considerable numbers of foreign and domestic viewers; 2) study of Balkanism is not a value free framework so an analysis of commentator’s arguments from an ideological slant should be made only if evidence is cherry-picked; and 3) intra- textual evidence should be given more weight than intra-textual ones. 5

REFERENCES Angelopoulus, Theodorus 1995. To vlemma tou Odyssea/Ulysses’ Gaze. Paradis Films. Bakid-Hayden, Milica 1990. Retorika Jugoslavenskog orijentalizma. Borba 2/3 June, pp. 1, 4, 5. ____ 1995. Nesting Orientalisms: The Case of Former Yugoslavia. Slavic Review 54:4, pp. 917–931. Bakid-Hayden, Milica and Hayden, Robert 1992. Orientalist Variations on the Theme “Balkans”: Symbolic Geography in Recent Yugoslav Cultural Politics. Slavic Review 51:1, pp. 1-15. Bal, Mieke 1999. Narratology: Introduction to the Theory of Narrative. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Bjelid, Dušan I. 2005. Global Aesthetics and the Serbian Cinema of the 1990s. Ed. Anikó Imre. East European Cinemas. New York, London: Routledge. Bogoeava-Sedlar, Ljiljana 1997. Apokalipsa danas: Čehov, Barker i Kusturica. Zbornik radova Fakulteta dramskih umetnosti 1:1, pp. 437-455. Chatman, Seymour 1990. Coming to Terms: The Rhetoric of Narrative in Fiction and Film. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Dakovid, Nevena, 1997. Priča, sedanja i istorija: Emir Kusturica: “Podzemlje”. Zbornik radova Fakulteta dramskih umetnosti 1:1, pp. 272-286. ____ 2003. Pretty Village, Pretty Flame: Conflicting Identities. Eds. Karen Ross and Daniz Derman. Mapping the Margins: Identity, Politics, and the Media. Creskill NJ: Hampton Press. Dragojevid, Srđan 1996. Lepa sela lepo gore/Pretty Village, Pretty Flame. Cobra Films, Yugoslavia: MCRS, RTS. ____ 1998. Rane/Wounds. Cobra Film Department, Pandora Filmproduktion. Elsaesser, Thomas 2003. Our Balkanist Gaze: About Memory’s No Man’s Land. Ed. Thomas Elsaesser. Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Ferreira, Marcos Farias 2006. Nation as Narration: The (De)construction of “Yugostalgia” through Kusturica’s Cinematic Eye. Communicao & Cultura 1 pp. 135-155. Galt, Rosalind 2006. New European Cinema: Redrawing the Map. New York: Columbia University Press. Gocid, Goran 2001. Notes from the Underground: The Cinema of Emir Kusturica. London: Wallflower Press. _____ 2005. Emir Kusturica: kult margine. Beograd: Studentski kulturni centar. Goulding, John 2002. Liberated Cinema: The Yugoslav Experience, 1945–2001. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Gourgouris, Stathis 2002. Hypnosis and Critique (Film Music for the Balkans). Eds. Dušan I. Bjelid and Obrad Savid. Balkan as a Metaphor: Between Globalization and Fragmentation. Cambridge MA, London: The MIT Press. Lekid, Miroslav 1999. Nož/The Knife. Metrofilm Beograd, Monte Royal Pictures. Homer, Sean 2007. Nationalism, Ideology and Balkan Cinema: Re-reading Kusturica’s Underground. Eds. Fabio Vighi and Heiko Feldner. Did Somebody Say Ideology?: On Slavoj Žižek and Consequences. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars. ____ 2009. Retrieving Emir Kusturica’s Underground as a Critique of Ethnic Nationalism. Jump Cut 51, http://www.ejumpcut.org/currentissue/Kusterica/. Accessed 15 November 2009. Horton, Andrew 1997. The Films of Theo Angolopoulos: A Cinema of Contemplation. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. ____ 2002. Beyond No Man’s Land: Comic Tragedy & Tearful Laughter in Cinemas of the Balkans. World Literature Today 18:70, pp. 30-35. Horton, Andrew J. (ed.) 2000. The Celluloid Tinderbox: Yugoslav Screen Reflections of a Turbulent Decade. Available online: http://www.kinoeye.org/03/10/celluloidtinderbox.pdf Iordanova, Dina 2001. The Cinema of Flames: Balkan Film, Culture and the Media. London: BFI Publishing. 6

Keene, Judith 2001. The Filmmaker as Historian, Above and Below Ground: Emir Kusturica and the Narratives of Yugoslav History. Rethinking History 5:2, pp. 233-253. Krstid, Igor 1999. Representing Yugoslavia? Emir Kusturica’s Underground and the Politics of Postmodern Cinematic Historiography. Tijdschrift voor Mediageschiedenis. Media & Orlog 2:2, pp. 138-59. ____ 2000a Showtime Brothers! Ed. Andrew J. Horton. The Celluloid Tinderbox: Yugoslav Screen Reflections of a Turbulent Decade. Available online: http://www.kinoeye.org/03/10/celluloidtinderbox.pdf ____ 2000b. ’s Wound Culture, Ed. Andrew J. Horton. The Celluloid Tinderbox: Yugoslav Screen Reflections of a Turbulent Decade. Available online: http://www.kinoeye.org/03/10/celluloidtinderbox.pdf Kusturica, Emir 1981. Sjedaš li se Dolly Bell?/Do You Remember Dolly Bell? Yugoslavia: Sutjeska Film, Televizija Sarajevo. ____ 1985. Otac na službenom putu/When Father Was Away on Business. Yugoslavia: Forum Film. ____ 1988. Dom za vešanje/. Forum Film, Televizija Sarajevo, Yugoslavia: Smart Egg Pictures (London). ____ 1995a. Propos de Emir Kusturica. Interview with Thierry Jousse and Serge Grünberg. Cahiers du Cinéma 492, pp. 69–71. ____ 1995b. Underground. CiBY 2000 (Paris). Pandora Film (Frankfurt). Novo Film (Budapest). In collaboration with Komuna and RTS, Yugoslavia; Medirex/Etic, Czech Republic; Tchapline Films, Bulgaria. ____ 1998. Crna mačka, beli mačor/Black Cat, White Cat. CiBY 2000 (Paris). Pandora Film (Frankfurt). Komuna (Belgrade). ____ 2004. Život je čudo/Life is a Miracle. France: Les Films Alain Sarde, Rasta Film, Studio Canal. ____ 2007. Zavet/Promise Me This. France: Fidélité Productions. Levi, Pavle 2007. Disintegration in Frames. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Longinovid, Tomislav Z. 2005. Playing the Western Eye: Balkan Masculinity and Post-Yugoslav War Cinema. Ed. Anikó Imre. East European Cinemas, New York, London: Routledge. Mančevski, Milčo 1994. Before the Rain. Aim, Noé, and Vardar film. With the participation of British Screen Productions, European Co-production Fund, PolyGram Audiovisuel and Ministry of Culture for the Republic of Macedonia. Manid, Aleksandar 2005. Knjiga rekorda Šutke/The Shutka Book of Records. Mazaj, Meta 2008. Once Upon a Time There Was a Country: Nationalism and Cynicism in the post- 1990s Balkan Cinema. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag Dr. Müller. Nola, Luka 2001. Nebo sateliti/Celestial Bodies. Ban Films, FiB Impex, HRT, InterFilm. Paskaljevid, Goran 1998. Bure baruta/Balkan Cabaret. Canal, Fonds Euroimage, Gradski kina, MACT Productions, Mine Films, Stefi S.A., Ticket Productions, Vans. Pejkovid, Sanjin 2008. Ima li ikog ispod nas? Sineast 120, pp. 109-121. Rivi, Luisa 2007. European Cinema after 1989: Cultural Identity and Transnational Production. New York: Palgrave MacMillian. Rosenstone, Robert A. (ed.) 2001. Special issue on Milcho Manchevski’s Before the Rain. Rethinking History 4:2. Said, Edward 1979. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books. Slugan, Mario 2011. Responses to Balkanism in Emir Kusturica’s Život je čudo/Life is a Miracle 2004. Studies in Eastern European Cinema 2:1, pp. 37-48. Van Watson, William 2008. Dis(solving) Bosnia: John Moore’s Behind Enemy Lines and Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land. New Review of Film and Television Studies 6:1, pp. 51-65. Tanovid, Danis 2001. Ničija zemlja/No Man’s Land. Noé Productions, France; Fabrica Cinema, Italy; Man’s Films, Belgium; Counihan Villiers Productions, Great Britain; Studio Maj, Casablanca; Slovenia. 7

Todorova, Maria 1994. The Balkans: From Discovery to Invention. Slavic Review 53:2, pp. 453-482. ____ 1997. Imagining the Balkans. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Žižek, Slavoj 1997a. Multiculturalism, or, the Cultural Logic of Multinational Capitalism. New Left Review I, September-October 225, pp. 28–51. ____ 1997b. Underground, or Ethnic Cleansing as a Continuation of Poetry by Other Means. InterCommunication 18, http://www.ntticc.or.jp/pub/ic_mag/ic018/intercity/zizek_E.html. Accessed 22 April 2011. _____ 1999. ”You May!” London Review of Books 21:6, 18 March, pp. 3-6. Accessible online: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v21/n06/slavoj-zizek/you-may.

i According to IMDB 227 thousand people have seen Ničija zemlja in France alone, and 129 thousand in Spain. It has grossed about $1 million in US which would add about 200 thousand spectators more. ii According to IMDB figures for admissions in France alone 536,000 people have seen Život and 338,252 Underground. iii Text here is used in Seymour Chatman’s sense of the word as any type of “communication that temporally controls its reception by the audience” (1990: 8) with a modification by Mieke Bal (1999) that it has a clearly marked end and a beginning.