Circus Columbia (2010)

Directed by: Danis Tanovic | 113 minutes | drama | Actors: Miki Manojlovic, Boris Ler, Mira Furlan, Jelena Stupljanin, Mario Knezovic, Milan Strljic, Svetislav Goncic

Bosnian director Danos Tanovic surprised friend and foe in 2001 with his moving and witty ‘No Man’s Land’, about a Serb and a Bosnian who are stranded during the war in a strip of no man’s land and cannot get away without each other. Nearly ten years later, Tanovic once again takes the Yugoslav conflict as the starting point for his film, this time with a bit more of a family drama and a partial coming-of-age story about Divko’s son, Martin. The somewhat surly Divko, now a middle-aged man in 1991, returns to his native village in southern Herzegovina. He was forced to leave it twenty years ago, leaving behind his wife and newborn son. In Germany he has waited all these years for his return, a moment that finally seems to have arrived with the fall of communism. Divko returns, claims his old house and puts his ex-wife Lucija and their son Martin on the street. He storms his old village as if it were his own, but is blind to the changed sentiments and bubbling unrest in the village.

The opening scene shows the typical languid atmosphere that is characteristic of many films set in the Balkans. The sun inexorably pours its rays down on the dusty village, the men are dominant, the boys insecure yet macho, the girls sexy and the women motherly. The days go by slowly, the authorities are corrupt and the facilities worthless. It is precisely in this disorganized society that Yugoslavia is on the verge of falling apart and on the eve of the brutal Balkan war that would ravage the region in the years to come. In those circumstances, Divko tries to return to a past that no longer exists, a united country that is falling apart; and to old friends who suddenly aren’t his friends anymore and old enemies he suddenly has to consider friends. Unfortunately, the extenuating circumstances cannot do anything about the antipathy Divko initially arouses. Tanovic often chooses questionable characters who cannot be liked immediately. The opportunistic-looking Azra, the passive Martin and his bitter mother are also not characters that the viewer will embrace without a doubt. And that is precisely the strength of the way of storytelling that Tanovic uses. Slowly but surely relationships become clear, the characters thaw and show what really drives them. Poor Divko loses his black cat Bonny and collapses from that moment on. Martin and his mother become entangled in an unfair fight against the authorities, and Azra is left a disillusioned third party.

At that moment it becomes painfully clear what really counts: who belongs to which group, who takes sides for the nationalists, the communists, the military, the bourgeoisie, Bosnia or Yugoslavia? The doubting main characters show their human side and Tanovic thus shows his humanistic approach to the conflict. By occasionally misleading his viewers, he keeps their attention and shows an honest picture of a disintegrated nation. Had this been his debut, Tanovic might have gone even further with this film. Unfortunately, Oscar winner ‘No Man’s Land’ can’t top ‘Cirkus Columbia’.