| The Wounds | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Srđan Dragojević |
| Produced by | Dragan Bjelogrlić Milko Josifov Igor Živković |
| Written by | Srđan Dragojević |
| Starring | Dušan Pekić Milan Marić Dragan Bjelogrlić Branka Katić Vesna Trivalić |
| Music by | Aleksandar Habić |
| Cinematography | Dušan Joksimović |
| Editing by | Petar Marković |
| Release date(s) | 1998 |
| Running time | 103 min. |
| Language | Serbian |
The Wounds (Serbian: Ране, Rane) is a 1998 Serbian drama film written and directed by Srđan Dragojević.
It depicts the violent lives of two boys in Belgrade as they aspire to make names for themselves in the city's underworld. The story takes place throughout the 1990s, against the backdrop of the Yugoslav wars and the growing ethnic hatred between Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks.
The film won a Bronze Horse at the Stockholm International Film Festival and a FIPRESCI Prize at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, "For its powerful, dramatic depiction of the brutal reality and complexity of life in the Balkans today."[1]
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The film's opening sequence announces it as being "dedicated to the generations born after Tito". The film follows the fate of two boys, Pinki and Švaba, growing up in Novi Beograd during the 1991-1996 period.
Pinki was born on 4 May 1980, the day Yugoslav president Tito died, and was given his unusual name by his father Stojan Mučibabić, an idealistic, impulsive, and patriotic officer of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) who is deeply devoted to communist ideals and Marshal Tito. Father's first choice for his firstborn's name was actually Tito, but the officials at the municipal office thought it provocative and inappropriate in the time of grieving so he eventually settled on Pinki after local communist Partisan fighter. Meanwhile, Pinki's best friend Švaba is raised and cared for only by his grandmother, Serb from Croatia who escaped to Serbia during World War II after persecution from the Croatian fascist movement Ustaše.
Living in the block of apartment buildings in Novi Beograd's neighbourhood of Paviljoni, both kids are extremely juvenile, though Pinki is a bit more thoughtful and articulate while Švaba is moody, impulsive, and prone to anger outbursts.
The duo also has another friend in the neighbourhood — Dijabola, an eager, geeky, and bespectacled outsider whose sexy and aloof mother Lidija is a well-known television host. Though they hang out with him, Pinki and Švaba mostly treat Dijabola poorly. He is constantly the butt of their insults and occasionally even gets beaten up by them.
The story begins in the late summer of 1991 as the kids watch Serbian troops (regular JNA troops and various volunteer militias) going off to war in neighbouring Croatia where the Battle of Vukovar is raging. Pinki's father Stojan is extremely frustrated about being forced into early retirement by the JNA army and thus missing the chance to go to war. He spends his days glued to the television set, watching news reports from Vukovar and cheering on the JNA. By now he has transformed into a Serbian nationalist and has become extremely irritable, getting into petty quarrels with neighbours and venting his anger along the ethnic and political lines. He has also found a new idol - instead of Tito he's now a huge supporter of Slobodan Milošević. Pinki, for his part, is mostly oblivious to the events around him as he spends most of his time compulsively masturbating.
By 1992 and 1993, Serbia is under a UN trade embargo, and the war has spread from Croatia to Bosnia as well. Entering their early teens, Pinki, Švaba and Dijabola begin their fascination with a neighbour across the street Kure who drives a nice car, makes regular robbing excursions to Germany while dating a trashy kafana singer. They're deeply impressed with his swagger and lifestyle and are ecstatic one day when he invites them to unload his car. In fact, he sends Dijabola away and picks only Švaba, but then upon Švaba's suggestion tells Pinki to come along as well.
Like many of their peers, Pinki and Švaba enter the world of crime at fourteen years of age, accepting the values of Serbia from that period, ex-communist community in hyper-transition, which, because of war and sanctions, reminds of a theater of absurd. The idols of main characters are famous Belgrade criminals and a TV show Puls Asfalta (Pulse of the Asphalt) which hosts such people and turns them into media stars. Pinki and Švaba are fantasizing of being in the show one day and they are trying to deserve that by committing crimes. After they succeed in establishing themselves as influential criminals and drug dealers, their uprising in the world of crime is cut by mutual conflict. Švaba shoots Pinki five times, unaware that he wounded his best friend in the same places Jesus was wounded two thousand years ago. Pinki manages to survive and after some time he escapes from the hospital, and calls his friend to make peace. The truce is more than terrible, as the wounded boy has, after an unwritten rule, to inflict five identical wounds to his friend, so the friendship can be built up again.
. .
The plot takes place during the 1991-1996 period and is based on the lives of two Belgrade youths who turn to the life of crime.
The story is loosely based on a mid-1990s television news item by Predrag Jeremić that aired on RTV Studio B about two criminally-involved adolescents who started out as friends before turning on one another. In a fit of anger one youth shot the other five times, but the wounded youth survived and recovered. Later, attempting to 'repair' their friendship, the shooter offered his recovered friend to shoot him five times in the exact body parts in order to get even. The friend accepted and shot him back five times.[2] Dragojević was told of the event by friends and decided to write a screenplay around it. He claimed to have purposely avoided actually watching the TV report because he didn't want to have his writing, casting, and directorial decisions subconsciously influenced by images or language in it. After finally seeing the report upon film's completion, Dragojević said he was amazed with the visual and behavioural similarities between the two sets of teens.[3]
Dragojević cast Dušan Pekić for the lead role of Pinki, selecting him from 5,000 youths who auditioned for the role, noting that Pekić shared a similar background with character Pinki.[4] The film proved to be Pekić's first and only role, as he died in 2000.[5]
The film's was funded in large part by the state institutions such as the state-run broadcaster RTS. Among its corporate sponsors, the movie's closing credits also list McDonald's Corporation and Fruit of the Loom.
The film was released in FR Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1998 where it was a cinema hit with 450,000 admission tickets sold[6] despite its promotional cycle in the country being severely impacted by the regime's refusal to run the film's ads on state television RTS (then under general manager Dragoljub Milanović) due to being dissatisfied with the country's bleak portrayal in the film.[7]
Starting in April 1999, the film began a theatrical distribution in Croatia thus becoming the first Serbian film in the post-Yugoslav Wars era to have distribution in that country. Another curiosity of its release in Croatia was the fact that it was subtitled. Even its title was translated from Rane to Ozljede, all of which became subject of much outrage[8] and ridicule.[9][10] It became a hit in the cinemas regardless, selling more than 40,000 admission tickets in Croatia.[11]
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