Competition
Dir. Dragan Bjelogrlić

The characters in the film are often wiping out their tears. One would say – isn’t it usual for a Eastern European film about some events of the 20th century? – and would be completely wrong. Because those are the tears of joy. Dragan Bjelogrlić’s film is unique in its own way for contemporary cinema – it is optimistic all the way through. The movie starts with a scene of virtuosic football play performed by a young boy called Tirke. As it usually goes, Tirke find it difficult to find a job, which saddens his mother, but constantly insists that he has a strong moral core, conscience and ethics instead. And when Tirke’s skills are noticed by Bosko Simonovic, the feature coach of the national team… Well, the following course of the film is easy to predict: up to a huge success of Serbian national team in the play vs. Bulgaria.

It is interesting to watch this almost chemical reaction, which is being built by the director: to watch a few dashing boys create an almost sacred fraternity and develop such “triumph of will” that it seems like they could make almost anything. Let’s say, to get to World Cup in Montevideo, where they didn’t even hoped to come. Or knock teeth out of a jerky son of the Prime Minister. Or to dislocate from jail to royal castle… It seems like they could really make anything.

The subplot “soccer instead of war” starts to sound in the film in a subtle way: everybody knows, what’s going to happen in Europe in a few years, when it will be no time for sport (the action takes place in 1930). FIFA has just been created. World Cup in Montevideo is the first one in history. Most of the characters in the film take words “soccer” and “Montevideo” as some kind of swearing and can’t understand how grown up men can waste their time on this. Of how can anyone barter away a position of apprentice at the factory “Ikarus” to be a leading forward in the national team… Films about people who put their houses up, lie to their relatives and risk everything, believing in nothing but their dream, have some purgative meaning. So after “Montevideo” one would probably want to let all the routine fly, throw away the cell phone, right here, by the cinema hall, and run away anywhere where the real life is.

And in the same time Serbs would not be themselves, if their national tragedy didn’t reflect through the football drive of the film. The King is willing to send “the national team of Yugoslavia” to the championship, but on a condition that there will be some Croations in there. The Croations refuse. A local tycoon is ready to put his money in the trip, but only if the team will be called Serbian, and not Yugoslavian. It is the team now who says no… And so you start to shiver unwillingly, when you hear the words: “Yugoslavia has signed a convention with the court in Hague”.

It is not without a reason that the film may seem simple-minded at first. The key to it lies in the words, that are pronounced in the first minutes on screen. “It was the best decade – after the big war… Then we didn’t yet what a real big war means”. The times before war are always simple-minded. In fact, the 21st of June in 1941 in Russian films is filled with sounds of “Riorita”.

The best players of the film, Tirke and Mosa are often having fun playing with a raw chicken egg. And a prophecy is told: ones who are able not to break the egg by playing with it, are going to die soon. The real Mosa (Blagoje Marjanovic) and Tirke (Aleksandar Tirnanic), the stars of soccer, have lived a long life. But artistic world has its own laws. And you never know, what’s waiting for these dashing boys after “the best decade” will be over.

Igor Saveliev