If the Seed Doesn’t Die-Daca bobul nu moare (2010)

Directed by: Sinisa Dragin | 115 minutes | drama | Actors: Ioana Barbu, Alexandru Bindea, Franz Buchrieser, Dan Condurache, Bryan Jardine, Horatiu Malaele, Mustafa Nadarevic, Milenko Pavlov, Relu Poalelungi, Goran Radakovic, Simona Stoicescu, Milos Tanaskovic, Valentin Teodosiu

‘If the Seed Doesn’t Die’ by film director Sinisa Dragin actually has two storylines. On the one hand, we follow father and son who come to collect the corpse of their lost son/brother in Romania. The boy died in a car accident. The second storyline describes the quest of an old man who has lost sight of his daughter. The various storylines are occasionally interrupted with flashbacks of a pilgrimage two hundred years earlier. At the time, Serbian peasants moved an Orthodox Christian church building through the interior under harsh conditions.

The film does not exactly paint a rosy picture of the Balkan region. We follow the two groups past dilapidated villages, corrupt officials and other injustice. The flashbacks to the pilgrimage centuries ago also point to this. The maker makes it clear that the Balkans have been ravaged by war, violence and corruption for centuries. It gives you a depressed, resigned mood.

Some movies are sometimes a bit funny because of all the sadness and clumsiness of the characters. That is also the case with this film. Yet you will not sit and watch this film with a smile. There are quite a few rough, shocking scenes in ‘If the Seed Doesn’t Die’ and they are a lot more impressive. The meeting between father and daughter in particular is not exactly a pleasant reunion. Director Dragin wanted to combine humor and tragedy in his film, but where he dosed the humor, he uses horse remedies for the tragedy.

You can probably imagine that the main characters are not exactly the most cheerful guys. However, there is one character, Nora, who does endure all hardships with a smile on her face. Her pleasant chatter and broad smile are a welcome change from all those gloomy male faces. “Maybe there is still some hope for the Balkans”, the director must have thought.

Director Sinisa Dragin started a job as a cameraman at Reuters immediately after his exam at the film academy. That may have shaped the man, because nowadays he mainly makes documentaries and this story also contains the necessary reflection on our current era. It is not really a special, elaborated message: Our country has been disadvantaged and corrupt for centuries and today it is really no different. The film also has a symbolic touch that you just have to love. Not really recommended.