“I’m dreaming, mother. Dreaming
that I’m singing. You’re asking me: what are you doing, my son? What does the
song in your dream say, my child? Mother, it says I once had a house. Now I
have none, mother. Once I had voice and a language. Now I have no voice and no
language. With the voice that I lost, in the language that I lost, I sing a
song, mother, about the house that I lost.”
How can you remain untouched
where a film opens with such a monologue showing us the image of a hanged
middle aged man on tree in snow clad cemetery? The film is an undernoticed anti-war
document from Bosnia
pointing the absurdity of war through strong images, humanitarian drama and
fine poetic monologues. A Bosnian drunkard poet after sending her daughter and
wife away from horror of war encounters two orphan kids. There’s massacre
everywhere where nobody knows when bombs or bullets from any direction end
their lives. The struggle of survival draws the film towards tragic climax but
before that throughout the film it raised many pertinent questions about the
absurdity of war.
Some images stays with me; that
injured dog with his hindlegs on wheel chair running aimlessly amid horror of
ruined city, that frequently shown image of poet’s hanged self reflected the
death of innocence, human sensibility of both mind and body. He performance of
Mustafa Nadarevic is so natural and effective. His delusional talk with his
wife and daughter and his frequent rendering monologues reflects the poet’s
tormented inner soul: “If I close my eyes, I see myself hanged. What my soul
couldn’t face, what my heart didn’t dare do, my body will do all by itself.”
Recommended.
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