I appreciate Sara
’s purposeful choice of a Slovenian film for this round of the IndieWeb Movie Club
. I think that’s part of the endeavour’s spirit: alternate internationally well-known crowdpleasers with smaller, nationally relevant stories.
I also appreciate how much care
Sara put into choosing a film that is reasonably available to watch outside from outside her country.
If I look at the statistics for films I’ve seen, there was absolutely no movie from Slovenia, so this was a great opportunity to take a peek into a country that’s the only Italian neighbour I haven’t visited yet.
Now, from my ignorance, comes the question of how to assess the film without knowing the full context of its origin Country, nor how it fits into its national culture.
Sara helpfully provided some context in her announcement post
.
For instance, she mentions this film can be seen as a comedy. I didn’t get this nuance at all (aside from a couple of evident jokes at the beginning).
This may be due to unawareness of Slovenian culture and humour, either from me and/or from whoever added the English subtitles: sometimes the one-inch-tall barrier decried by Bong Joon-ho can also act as a distortion field.
Petra - the daughter of the lead character - is a student, so much so that several characters mention that ‘she hasn’t finished her studies’, or ask whether ‘she has found a job yet’, but actress Aleksandra Balmazović was already in her forties when she played the role. Is this distracting casting, or a satirical element? (again, I have no idea about the average age students graduate in Slovenia, or whether this is a jab at children of well-to-do families)
For my taste and understanding, this film is a drama, or a political thriller, and an entertaining one: I wasn’t bored or lost interest at any point. I felt a bit tense at moments: this is a story about an imminent (local) election, but it’s difficult to dissociate it from recent world-affecting electoral events. I don’t know whether this was a factor in Sara’s choice of a movie, but the result is effective.
One social point that is easy to grasp is the tension that surrounds the North Macedonian character (Blagoj Veselinov), always regarded with suspicion for being an immigrant (these characters were all born ‘Yugoslav’, but again, my current ignorance prevents me from knowing what the relationships between the countries federated under Yugoslavia were: I suspect not so smooth, but I would be happy to be corrected).
Halfway through the running time, I was reminded of The Godfather Part III: not because of a lavish mise-en-scene (the cinematography in this film is so drab - but again, I have no context about common styles in Slovenian filmmaking), but due to the political/criminal setting, the feeling of characters being ‘pulled back in’ a situation from their past, the romantic subplot revolving around the lead’s daughter (though, regrettably, there’s no lovemaking while preparing gnocchi here), but most of all the fact it takes inspiration from real-life events.
Although it would be hard to find someone who considers The Godfather Part III a good film, for me it was even more infuriating because of its nonchalance in mixing Michael Corleone’s story with a remix of actual scandals and deaths that impacted the Vatican and Italian’s financial institutions in the early 1980’s - an appropriation and screenwriting shortcut which I found very simplistic and disrespectful for real people and victims.
I am not saying Vsi proti vsem’s director Andrej Košak didn’t have more justifiable reasons to weave in this screenplay lightly fictionalised versions of people from real events. Maybe they intended to denounce the real affairs, though I would imagine that everyone in Slovenia knew these stories already. Maybe it was meant to decry the fact that ‘modern’ politicians have a past that might be not that modern.
Regardless of the intention, what I see on screen is a script uncertain of who or what its characters are: the main protagonist (Vlado Novak), whom we initially see very concerned about the effects of his actions - even when he’s on his own -, completely changes his attitude once his past is revealed (in an unrelated piece of dialogue by his wife - played by Silva Čušin); the main villain follows the opposite trajectory: an intimidating, ruthless and cunning figure at the beginning, who becomes totally helpless later on; a chief of police who’s more worried of what the public opinion into an investigation of an election candidate, than of what they will think of him not investigating what happened to the leading candidate. Not to mention the revelations in the very last scene.
This level of deception in the narration left me a bit disappointed, although I had overall an entertaining time watching All Against All.
Thanks again to Sara for hosting and proposing this film. I look forward to watching one of her runner-up movies, Izbrisana/Erased , the next time I subscribe to Sooner.be .