Film Ravna Gora
Just another piece of work in the ART OF TRUTH BENDING.....
Hence my question is at what point does “ART”.....in this case a stylised drama, become or supplants reality for a new generation?
At what point is the director truly independent in their work?
At what point does historical fact stop and drama/art start?
On what basis is there a need for reflecting historical fact in film, if it is going to be changed for dramatisation and art?
At what point can the director, or his “historical advisors”, say they have used independent unaltered historical records, in their film, or have genuinely and accurately reflected it?
For a director who has extensively promoted the Ravno Gora series as historically ground breaking, particularly from the context of the need to rewrite history. The first offering from Rados Bajic falls well short of the mark.
Setting the scene for Drama/Art to come...
There have been some interesting characterisations within the first episode that possibly might set the scene for what’s about to come .....was Bajic and his team independent? were they politically and ideologically motivated.....?
The Characters
The Communist Ideologist
Here we had a young factory worker, who coincidentally just happens to be intellectual, he coincidentally happens to be humane in rehabilitating the bird that has a broken wing. He is also presented as being brave, as he dodges German bombs to save the bird....and his communist ideological red book.
In Contrast
We have the portrayal of the young regent King Petar II, who has managed to sleep through part of a German Nazi bombing campaign. That intense and extensive, it could have resurrected the hearing of most death people. With a household butler, not only concerned about his King’s beauty sleep, but his slippers during an air raid. Interestingly this same young King, had gained a fighter pilot’s licence, and was planning with KJV officers in Egypt to fly back to Serbia to help the cause. Unfortunately in the test flight the Allied Serbian plane, was shot down unfortunately by the “allies”.
Professor Slobodan Jovanovic was portrayed as a anglophile, while General’s Borivoj Mirkovic and Dusan Simovic seem to escape any real form of scrutiny. In fact the whole “puc” seem to disappear from any form of drama or scripting. Surprisingly as that act alone had cost the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, many thousands of mainly Serbian deaths, during the Nazi German bombing. These military “pucists” were paid in “gold” by their sponsors, who used a similar mantra to the communists later, surprisingly with the help of same sponsors. Interestingly, Prince Pavle in previous years had gone to these same centre’s of power, requesting financial assistance to purchase modern armaments for an army with old weapons, this support was denied. Feels kind of sacrificial?!
These so called General’s, Borivoj Mirkovic and Dusan Simovic, took their new found wealth, their families and left the Kingdom via Niksic and Greece to the middle east. What’s strange is this same Simovic after a brief period in exile in London, returned to Broz and Communism?
But the most interesting dramatisation and characterisations was the drunken KJV officers, who just happen to be the Captain of the Karaula on the Sipski canal on the Dunav.
Who they presented as KJV officers who choose drinking and womanising, while in uniform, as oppose to returning to their duties. The officer was shown as ignoring the information from his young soldier, which purported to witnessing unrecognisable boats that were approaching down the river, during the night. On returning to his fortification, the disillusioned soldier witnesses the death and carnage of his fellow soldiers from the German attack.
What is Rados Bajic and his “team” trying to imply here?
This scene is a gross inaccuracy of an actual historical event.
Leaving aside events in Slovenia, attacks from Hungary/Bulgaria the Ustasi-Communist pact acting as a fifth column totally against the Kingdom and its army.
The German Nazi War against Yugoslavia, just happens on this night of the 5th/6th April in the Sipskog Canal. The best of the German Special forces the “Brandenburg” unit carried out the operation on the canal.
To quote Branko M Jevtic & Branko Bogdanovic
''...Немци, свесни те опасности, испланирали су заузимање и спречавање онеспособљавања Сипског канала. Уочи напада, прво је локални фолксдојчер позвао групу југословенских официра на неку прославу у своју кафану, где су сви омамљени средством за успављивање. У току ноћи 6. априла 54 припадника пука Бранденбург преобучени у српска сељачка одела су пребачени гуменим чамцима на југословенску обалу, побили успаване официре, и после краће борбе са војницима успешно заузели канал и сва постројења''.
Извор: Бранко М. Јевтић и Бранко Богдановић
''Јуришни батаљони војске Краљевине Југославије - од мита до истине''
страни 54, у поглављу ''Заузимање Сипског канала''.
Therefore the German Special forces had organised local agents to invite Officers to an Inn, where they were given a sleeping concoction. The German forces infiltrated the Kingdom disguised as Serbian peasants in rubber boats. They killed the sleeping officers, but after a battle a stiff resistance, the Nazi Germans had taken the canal and its fortification.
This except from book has not been released by the publishers. The Second World War writer, Miloslav Samardzic has an electronic copy of the book, as he and Branko Jevtic collaborate on work. The director Rados Bajic, has not only heard of the Jevtic, but Branko Jevtic gave him a summary of the incidents on the Sipskog canal.
So here we don’t have a case of ignorance, lack of knowledge or information, but one of intent, instead of getting KJV officers being drugged by local agents under the instruction of German Special forces, and a battle at the fortification with KJV fighting Germans. Rados Bajic has them shown as drunkards, neglecting their duties, no KJV fighting German scenes.
Does Rados Bajic and his “team” of historical advisors know that the KJV is the direct descendent, of the same officer core that fought in the first world war?
Sounds like another bout of Communist ideology repackaged and remarketed. In fact there are elements from a previous Balajic (Communist post war fiction film Director) Film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnBkgGLN7OU
So how can you take a country and its institutions seriously, if it cannot assess how the Nazi Germans began their attack on the Kingdom of Yugoslavia?
The portrayal can only be seen as another communist satanisation, and burial of the Royal Yugoslavian Army. By the descendents of a military grouping, that in any normal jurisprudence in the world, would be regarded as illegal, sponsored both militarily and financially, by foreign powers. With obvious geopolitical interests, for the destabilisation of the Yugoslavian Kingdom.
So what is the secret motive for showing this piece of history, this inaccurately, to Serbian populations both home and abroad?
To quote Miloslav Samardzic
Ne vidim razlog zašto bi se istorijski elementi u scenariju uopšte kosili sa dramskim, ako nema skrivenih motiva u prikazu ove serije. Istorijski elementi kao istorijski elementi su nepromenljivi, a posao dobrog scenariste jeste da samo vešto uplete dramske elemente u njih, ako je već uzeo istorijsku temu kao bazu za rad. Ako zarad "dramskog elementa" scenarista počne da menja i istorijske fakte, u toj meri da kako kažeš "dramski element preovlađuje nad istorijskim", to jasno pokazuje da tu nešto nije u redu. Ne preovlađuje to dramski element, nego se istorijske činjenice zamenjuju istorijskim falsifikatima, a zarad čega, ne znam. Nešto mi ne pije vodu da je to samo "zarad dramskog elementa".
What is the point of spending so much money and time on a series if the plain and simple truth, will be once again the victim of creative writing and filming?
The money would have been better spent assessing the role of foreign powers prior to the war, how a socialist movement that purported genocide as method of achieving its goals, and had identified the Slavs (Serbs as “smece”) in the mid 1800’s, manage to get a foot hold in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Also, and in contrast how fascism was being marketed within the Kingdom, and how this all added to complex mosaic that enabled father to kill son, brother to kill brother.
Maybe Rados Bajic should have made a film, as to why so many family members and friends killed each other, in the name of an ideology completely alien to our culture and its 8,000 year history.
What do these people wish to defend anymore?
