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Emir Kusturica :
Unfortunately, at this time, some novels recently published were talking of the excesses committed by those who had to protect in 49-50 Yugoslavia from the Stalinism's arbitrary. There was a lot of mistakes. Some innocents like Meša, in ”Father” became characters of novels. The production companies work with a self-managing principle. The programmes council of Sutjeska Film, which already had produced my first film Do you remember Dolly Bell ?, had first given a positive answer. Mais this happened just before the release of ”Tren 2
”, by Antonije Isaković, a novel that was not warmly welcomed. So, the Artistic Council members, except Kasim Prohic, fearing the reaction of their comrades, refused the scenario. Luckily, Yugoslavia was already in a democratic process. When one Artistic Council refuses your work, you go to the one of another production company. Two years after, I took contact with Forum in Sarajevo, mostly known as a foreign film importer. They accepted to produce ”Father”.
There are common characters in Dolly Bell and Father, especially the fathers. They have an image of men at the same time strong and fragile. What remains today, of this very strong patriarchal society of the Fifties ? Did that change ?
Well, without transition… You were born in Sarajevo, you live there, a part of your film is held there. How do you like this city ?
EK :
Sarajevo is one of the strangest cities of Europe, a very old city where several ethnic groups, several confessions live together. Almost at the edge of Europe. We could say that it has a foot in Asia, the other in Europe. In one of his texts The Letter of 1920, Andrić describes Sarajevo like a city which, on a surface of 300 m2 would have four temples: the catholic church, the orthodox church, the synagogue and the mosque. Somebody being in the heart of the old market place at midnight could hear the songs of all the religions. This is in my mind, the most significant in the history of Sarajevo. It also has, like other towns of Europe and of the world, but of course on a smaller scale, its team of Football, its television, its cinemas… everything for a “normal” life but also places where occurs an “abnormal” life.
In Dolly Bell as well as in Father, which was located in the years 50-60, the Islamic religion is very present. Is it still true today ?
EK :
It is very complicated with “this Islam”. After the Ottoman conquest of Bosnia and from the end of XVth century, some orthodox Serbs and catholic Croats, but especially the bogomiles1) pagan people, that the catholic church persecuted since years, accepted Islam. And of course, their descendants still live today. Me, for example, I am of a family which is attached to it… but I am atheistic. In my films, I speak about my childhood and what I lived. But Islam is not purely traditional any more, even the rites are deteriorated by the fact that they are held in a communist family.
In Father we often hear of Football. Moreover the film ends with the famous match won in 1952 by Yugoslavia against USSR.
EK :
I think that in this film Football is history. Among the various experiments recorded by the childish conscience, Football or more exactly the matches that the Yugoslav national team played these years were the most important historical events. For a 6 year old boy, what could be History, it was Football. Moreover, the recent match at Heysel between Liverpool and Juventus proves that football is also war. I was event told one day that the third World War would begin on a playground. These matches are so hysterical and full of nationalism that they benefit only to the consumer society of the West… and the whole world. What do the politicians make ? They warm up the national feelings with Football : matches… that start to look like battlefields.
The starting point of Father is the caricature of Marx sitting at his office with the picture of Stalin behind him. Is Politics the subject of your film ?
EK :
You know, I didn't invent the drawing. It was really published in July 1950 in the daily newspaper “Politika”, the one that holds Meša in the film. The author was Zuko Dzumhur, a Yugoslav caricaturist. In Father, the Politics is pretext to tell the history of a child and his family. Moreover I think that any film is “political”. There isn't any important film that does not have a political background. But it becomes contemptible when Politics is the single matter. I don't like the films with a thesis, the films that want to give justice, that want to show that the State is not good, that the police is dreadful, that the C.I.A. prevents things… These are certainly truths, historical truths but the cinema doesn't support outrageous simplification. It is more exciting to see how Politics - as an instrument - influence the human life, the families, how it ruins them or helps them, how it disperses them or joins them together.
Names ?
EK :
Dušan Makavejev, Zika Pavlović, Srdjan Karanović, Rajko Griić, Goran Marković.
Extracts of an interview ” Étoiles et toiles ” made by Martine JOUANDO and Dejan BOGDANOVIC, Sarajevo - July 1985, translation by Matthieu Dhennin
Sarajevo - juillet 1985
en/itv_85-07_papa.txt · Last modified: 2008/02/17 18:51 by matthieu1