Macedonian Rashomon

/, Gallery, Blesok no. 26/Macedonian Rashomon

Macedonian Rashomon

#5 * You have some experience as the humorist and satirist, you used to publish at the end of 70’s in “Osten”, a magazine for humor and satire. Two things can be noted: They are written in grammatical first person, as some kind of a film notification. In “Dust” we could see your sense of humor in few of its variants (irony, sarcasm, and anecdote) and through some different characters. Finally, the whole film is a kind of an ironic play with the narrative film. What function you give to the humor in your projects: to ease the communicability with the audience?
MM:
Humor has two reasons in my films, and I think, in the film in general. The first one is – it makes it communicative. The second and much more important is – it’s a part of a life’s euphoria. Although I’m not the one who should say this, but this is the main difference between “Before the Rain” and “Dust”. “Dust” is more complex. And besides that enriched complexity, the greatest difference is e humor, more of that life euphoria is at the surface, and in the same time it’s quite “down” in the atmosphere. They don’t function well – one without the other. Both ends of the spectrum should be given to gain the real complexity. If the shadow isn’t there, the sun can’t be that strong. The humor in its essence is amazingly difficult phenomenon. Something you find funny, I don’t, and vice versa. Especially among the different cultures, so I did expect that it would travel with difficulties. What I was most pleasantly surprised of, was the fact that the audience reacts at the exact spots I wanted. It was of most importance for me. I did see that the audiences everywhere laugh at the same spots: in Toronto, in Tokio, as well as in Skopje. The very reason I’ve started to make films is the story itself, to make my stories more easily communicative with the recipient.
#6
* I personally agree that, when we spoke of art, that it should speak of universal things, and that every story, how intimate it is, the artist should present it in some collective frameworks. But, why Milcho is defensive as a devil himself when someone say that he made national, not nationalistic film, or even (God forbid!) chauvinistic one? If someone like Spielberg can do it, for example, in “Saving Private Ryan”?
MM:
I have nothing against a national film. “Dust” can be considered, in some small framework, as a national film. Even a little more than “Before the Rain”, but it isn’t a nationalistic one. I’m not afraid of it, but I must note that even if I want to, I just can’t do such film. Only if I stay to live here for the next 15 years, then, maybe I would be able to do that. You must consider that I’m not in Macedonia since I was 19. What I do as an author and artist doesn’t come in 100% from here. It’s a different story with someone like Lars Fon Trier, who lives and works in Denmark. If I write a script, and I want some of my friends to see it, it would certainly be a N.Y. friend, because I’m there, too. And if I compare some of what I write, I would certainly compare it with something from there, too. At the other hand, my esthetical forming and the first 20 years of my life were in Macedonia, so my origins and bases are Macedonian, and I can’t escape it, even if I want to, although I don’t. In contrary. Anyway, every film should be above the national level.

* How much we try to applicate that, the conclusion is that “Dust” isn’t firmly tied up with one single space, mentality and ideology. In contrary, it often changes the theoretical strategy and incorporates the historical pieces. Ritual dances of primitive tribes, antic pillars, Byzantine fresco-painting, the cubizm, “The Misses from Avignon”, then the whole history of 20th century: the nuclear bomb, the prohibition, the native American Indians, Freud, the Brothers Right plane, the Ottomans, J.B.Tito… Can the use of these historical events in any context of the film to be comprehend as some kind of an author’s comment?
MM:
I use them as a part of the mix. They are the part of the scenery design. I will say again: like Rauschenberg uses some elements. They are all moments from our collective past and from our individual psychology. I’m aware of the atomic bomb, of the cubism, and I can’t avoid it, even if I want to. How can I make a film for the komitis and Macedonian rebellions, and how can I be familiar with that history, and not to be familiar with something so world-widely known as the cubism? I may not mention it, but the cubism, formalism, and all others esthetics, older or not. I always start with a presumption of deep honesty. I invite the recipient with that: let’s make this film together, let’s play together. A part of that honesty is to show to him the “stitches” of the making of the suit, and that’s nothing new in art, but it’s new in the narrative film. it is an honesty, because I show the “stitches” with saying: “I tell a story, so it means that I lie to you, but do recognize the fact that I’m showing to you that I lie, with agreeing to that”. I don’t do that rationally, with intention, but as a part of the play. If the play is consequent, and done with talent, then it’s functioning and it will be open for analyzing. Hiroshima was one of the most important events in 20th century, which defines us, and even that part of us who live in Shtavica. At the other hand, all that is so close to us in time. All that history that seems so widened onto a period of 1000 years, s so close to us. Elijah, who starts his travel from Oklahoma in 1900 as a young man, and arrives in Macedonia in 1903. So, it is quite possible to be in N.Y. in 1945, when the atomic bomb was thrown. We do fall on the cliches. We think in this way: Ottoman Empire – 16th century, cowboys – 19th century, atomic bomb – well, it’s a 21st century!

AuthorŽarko Kujundžiski
2018-08-21T17:23:38+00:00 May 1st, 2002|Categories: Reviews, Gallery, Blesok no. 26|0 Comments