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Movie : NeprijateljRelease Date : 6 March 2011 (Serbia)
Genre : Box Office
Cast : Aleksandar Stojkovic,Vuk Kostic,Tihomir Stanic,Ljubomir Bandovic,Slavko Stimac,Marija Pikic,Dragan Marinkovic ,Stefan Bundalo,Goran Jokic,Vladimir Djordjevic, Dusko Mazalica,Vladan Cvetkovic,Stephane Monjo,Milorad Vekic,Stevan Medojevic
Quality : DVDRip
Subtitle : Serbian | English | Arabic | Bosnian
Posting : Dervira Beautiful Girl
Sinopsis :
It’s probably fair to say that, for those who form part of a prospective audience, not many of us know too much about the country of Serbia. So, when trying to estimate the efficacy of a movie which purports to be ‘an allegory about Serbia’, we’re already in dangerous territory. If we know so little about the political situation of a country, how the hell can we estimate whether or not a film works as an allegory? If we don’t know that much about what we’re looking at – and let’s be fair here, Balkan history and politics is incredibly complex – then how can we be sure we’re ‘getting it’? The plain fact is that for most of us, we can’t. Our lack of knowledge about Serbia leaves us wide open to good old-fashioned exploitation by claims about the deeper meaning behind, let’s say, a film about violent pornography, which purports to have a deeper significance. That is all I am going to say, or need to say on a certain other Serbian film and its ‘allegories’ because it’s been eclipsed by another Serbian film which really does work on several levels, and really does tell us something coherent and unique about its country of origin. One of the darkest, cleverest films I’ve seen for a long time, and my favourite movie at this year’s Abertoir Horror Festival, I bring you The Enemy (Neprijatelj).
It is a few days after the end of the Bosnian War in 1995: no conflict ends neatly when peace is declared, of course, and a small unit of Serbian military engineers has been charged with removing an expanse of their remnant landmines along the Serbian border. It is a laborious, difficult task and will most likely keep them away from home for a long time. They also perform a sweep over what remains of a nearby town, and in a disused factory they find – apparently walled in – a middle-aged man. Despite being left in the dark without food or water, possibly for days, he is calm and polite – and even seems, somehow, as though he was expecting them.
They take the man back to their camp (in a ruined farmhouse near the site of operations) but any mystery surrounding him only increases; he refuses food and water, and subsists only on cigarettes. He dodges questions about his identity, and seems to take an ironic pleasure in the disconcerting effect he has on the men. Soon enough, his presence seems to have a catalytic effect on them; with him there, pre-existing cracks in their relationships are wrenched open, and the men start to refuse to be alone with their smirking guest. To do so spells trouble. In an effort to ascertain who he is and what he was doing, some of the men return to the factory – where they find a glut of dead bodies, and encounter some still-hostile Bosniak Muslims who react with terror when they reveal they released the man. He is, one of the Bosniaks claim, the Devil incarnate. The presence of a young woman who arrives at the camp – her former home – insistent that she must wait for the return of her father adds to the atmosphere of unease and tension there, and an escalating sense of chaos-in-waiting.
Is the man truly the Devil? The film really holds out on that score, and his low key performance maintains an ambiguity which never feels like a cop-out. At the end of it all, you could feel one way or the other about this film, seeing it as supernatural, or even not, and adopting either stance would not weaken your enjoyment. All of the performances here are incredibly strong, with razor-sharp dialogue which allows you to engage with realistically-crafted characters with whose plight you can empathise. These guys are exhausted, under immense strain, and charged with the difficult job of removing their own mines from their own border. Some of them are obviously damaged, some of them impatient to see their families, but what is certain is that spending time with their strange visitor alienates them from each other and breaks them down irreparably.
The whole film is a testament to unease. The tentative position of the unit on the edge of a minefield, surrounded by a bleak landscape which hides immense danger, also reflects the internal dynamic of the group, especially at the point when they are destabilised by their new arrival. Every man here is gradually, systematically estranged from his peers and the profound loneliness of their predicaments sustains the slow-burn feeling of dread throughout.
Moments of wrestling with personal faith only underscore the element of isolation in the plot. The concept introduced in the film of the ‘Demiurge’ is incredibly important to how the film hangs together; the Demiurge, an ancient idea of a force which fashions the material world, like a craftsman, is mentioned several times as relating to The Enemy’s mysterious man. The fact that he was found in a factory is therefore very telling, and the idea of a malevolent manipulator of the earthly plain also feeds into the plight of the men – Bosniak and Serb both – and relates to the situation in the war-scarred countries who took part in the conflict. Does the faith of any of the participants protect them from the situation around them, or does it lay them wide open to harm? In an uneasy peace, and when the simple presence of a stranger can jeopardise everything, what are faith and friendship anyway? As the men become remote from one another, all of this is called into question.
In no way, shape or form a standard war movie, The Enemy is a clever, subtle story about self-reflection and doubt. This is a powerful psychological story which really has something to say.
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