When Father Was Away on Business [Yugoslavia 1985]

Otac na službenom putu
Director: E. Kusturica
Cinematographer: V. Filac

This film looks at the coming-to-be of Yugoslavia as a separate socialist country, and the absurdities of the political upheaval of the split from the Cominform countries, as seen from the viewpoint of a child. Like Interrogation, this is a look back from the 1980s at the upheavals and paranoia of the immediate post-war period, though in this case from those opposed to the Stalin faction.

As in that film, the whole situation is made to seem manifestly irrational. Here, the father in question, who is sent to a work camp for a careless remark about a cartoon mocking Stalin, is a devoted Communist, like many of those who were imprisoned for supporting the Cominform. But, as in Interrogation, there is an ambiguous role played by personal affairs, because the man who has the power to imprison him also has personal reasons to do so. And as in that film, at the end we see the man who imprisoned him torn by guilt and self-hatred.

So basically it is a story of a period of paranoia in which families and friends were turned against each other, and which presumably had a lasting influence on the society. This is a story which played itself out across Eastern Europe in the late 1940s and early 1950s, as well as in the USSR in the 1930s. The Yugoslav case is special because of the split and the birth of Yugoslav socialism, but the cases seem to share some symptoms. This is also suggested toward the end of the film, when we hear a radio announcer describing a football victory of Yugoslavia over the USSR, and saying that Yugoslavia was just on par with the USSR before, but now they had even surpassed them.

But of course the film is more than that; it is filled with the imagery of a certain childhood--lusting after a football, after a girl, fearing circumcision, etc. We really see the film through the lens of the young boy, which means that certain elements, like the football, are exaggerated beyond what we might normally think is their real size or importance. This could have been done very poorly, but in fact it is not; and we get a fairly clear picture of what is going on nonetheless.

It is a picture which seems full of metaphor. The young boy starts sleepwalking when his father is sent away. He seems to sleepwalk to high places where he can overlook the world; a symbol perhaps of a desire to escape from all the confusion and violent nonsense that is taking place around him. He is young; born around the same time as the new Yugoslavia, similarly trying hard to find a footing in a world which does not make much sense, in which close relations betray each other. There is not really a loss of innocence here, for the character of the boy does not outwardly change. It seems more like a trauma, which is only expressed unconsciously, in his sleepwalking. So perhaps there is a statement here about Yugoslavia as a whole, and the effects of this period on the times that came after.

In some sense, then, there is a parallel with Tarkovsky's Mirror. There is a feeling about this film that it is personal, that imagery like the football is genuine and autobiographical. This means that it is a film which probably plugs in much more directly to the psychology of Yugoslavs than to anyone else. Nevertheless, as with Mirror, outsiders can understand a great deal. The use of the child's point of view enhances that in both films, because we see the world as the confusing and chaotic thing that it is, rather than through the jaded eyes of ideology.

There are some very interesting moments in this film in terms of depiction of the social situation. The second work camp is depicted as being fairly liberal; the workers are not even dressed as prisoners, they seem free to travel around the area, and the father character plays chess and socialises with his immediate superior. Several of the prisoners are shown going to a dance hall at which they not only pick up prostitutes, but do so with the co-operation of the waiter--in other words, it seems like an institutionalised thing, almost a brothel. There is no elaboration on this theme but it is interesting that this seems to have existed in Yugoslavia of circa 1950, and that in 1985 the fact was freely talked about. We see a lot of scenes of life of people very much taking part in the socialist dream, in particular the physical culture movement, as well as a ceremony in which young pioneers deliver batons to a local official and speeches about following the revolutionary path of Tito. In all of these the feeling of ordinary people seems to be one of genuine participation and enthusiasm, even if there is cynicism about the particularities of politics. We also see a circumcision, which seems to be a Bosnian Muslim practice, but one which takes place in a family of Communists, and one for which the police are even willing to wait a day before sending away the father. In other words, a fairly healthy secularism.

Of note are moments in which this film not only criticises the years of the split, but also mocks the adulation of Tito. In particular a sort of comical line in which an official demands 'Is it Tito leading the party, or the party leading Tito?' It is a fairly gentle mocking but a mocking nonetheless. There is also an interesting moment in which one character says 'We have democracy', to which another responds 'There can be no democracy when the coffers are empty'--an interesting statement which would have been irrelevant during the later economic successes, but particularly relevant in 1985, in the throes of economic crisis.

Cinematographically this film does not particularly stand out. But it does more than just frame the actors and dialogue. The cinematography does actually effectively create a sense of being from the point of view of the child, but without any overly obvious manoeuvres. It does this mainly through the way it emphasises particular objects and areas of a scene.

So we have here what might be called a fragment of the Yugoslav version of Mirror. Of course the style and content are very different. But the insight to be gained is similar; the way in which some of a generation that lived through the early years of socialism looked back on those years as adults.