Films and Bridge on the Drina

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Films and Bridge on the Drina
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Film Before the Rain

• "Before the Rain refers to the feeling of heavy
  expectation, when the skies are pregnant with the
  possibility of an outburst, when the people are
  silent, waiting for a tragedy of cleansing,"
  writer/director Milcho Manchevski
• 1994 directed by Milcho Manchevski
• Rade erbedia
• Macedonia-Great Britain

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Milcho Manchevski
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Language and culture differences

• Macedonian Orthodox
• Macedonian Muslim/Albanian
• Different languages
• Peaceful coexistence?
• Identity language, religious label (not
  doctrine), heritage

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Human message (so far)

• Violence close to the surface
• Children, ninja games, bullets in the fire
• Macedonian men seeking revenge random violence
  (against cat)
• Rain coming
• Garden provides sustenance (tomatoes given to
  girl)
• Monks offer protection hope?

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Disintegration

• Multilingualism (after 1981)
• Divisive myth Turkish rule
• Hospitality (Zekirs grandson)

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Five Centurie of Turkish Slavery?

• Mid-15th 1912
• Servitude, struggle, liberation
• Explains backwardness, marginalization
• All problems the Turks
• Even the Turks blame their problems on the
  Empire

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Reality

• 20th century history contradicts all this
• WWII Western Macedonia part of fascist Greater
  Albania
• Macedonian partisans-communists fought Albanian
  National Front
• In early and mid-90s Turkey provided economic
  support to Macedonia
• Greek blockade in South
• UN Embargo on trade with Serbia (North)
• No tensions between Turks and Macedonians in
  Eastern Macedonia (few Albanians)

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Film as Fable (with a warning)

• Cycle/circle of violence
• Mistrust, hopelessness
• Us vs Them
• Retreat to archaic value systems
• Tribal-patriarchal
• Revenge/blood killings
• Women property and
• Not roundpossibility for escape from violence

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Irony something is more important than blood
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Why

• Us vs. Them
• Revenge (eye for an eye) religion
• Historical hurt (five centuries of Turkish
  bondage)
• Violence as badge of honor, sign of courage
• Women as property
• Women and tribal purity
• Linguistic isolation

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Escape? Reason for hope?

• Kiril in the West
• Anne will have baby
• Wedding scene could be Albanian or Macedonian
• Message people will go on with their lives
  birth, marriage, death
• Circle is not round escape from violence is
  possible

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What happened in Macedonia?
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Welcome to Sarajevo

• Directed by Michael Winterbottom
• 1997 film

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Whats Happening?

• Reporters trying to understand
• Different reporting styles question of
  objectivity, taking sides
• Relationship with locals

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Whats Happening?

• Reporters trying to understand
• Different reporting styles question of
  objectivity, taking sides
• Relationship with locals

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Struggles with objectivity

• Food for locals the eggs
• Double life dealing with strangers who dont
  have a clue

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Personalizing the conflict

• Woody Harrelson visits the father of prisoner
• Stephen takes up the orphans cause
• Promises
• Taking sides?

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What about the children?
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Escape from Sarajevo

• Departure
• Stops along the way
• Massacre remains
• Serb patrol
• Arrival in Split

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UN Presence

• What can the UN do?
• What about priorities?
• What are the top 14?

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Concert in Sarajevo

• Vedran Smailovic
• Bread line massacre in May 1992
• 22 people killed
• He played 22 days in front of the bakery to
  commemorate the victims
• Albinonis Adagio in G Minor

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Documenting the horror

• Concentration camps
• Bombs, snipers, and soldiers

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Struggles with objectivity

• Food for locals the eggs
• Double life dealing with strangers who dont
  have a clue

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Who is the enemy?
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What about the children?
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UN Presence

• What can the UN do?
• What about priorities?
• What are the top 14?

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Documenting the horror

• Concentration camps
• Bombs, snipers, and soldiers

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Personalizing the conflict

• Woody Harrelson visits the father of prisoner
• Stephen takes up the orphans cause
• Promises
• Taking sides?

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Escape from Sarajevo

• Departure
• Stops along the way
• Massacre remains
• Serb patrol
• Arrival in Split

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(No Transcript)
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Concert in Sarajevo

• Vedran Smailovic
• Bread line massacre in May 1992
• 22 people killed
• He played 22 days in front of the bakery to
  commemorate the victims
• Albinonis Adagio in G Minor

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(No Transcript)
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Welcome to Sarajevo

• Directed by Michael Winterbottom
• 1997 film

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Point and implications

• What we didnt see on TV
• Is redemption forced, real? To make us feel good?
  Isnt it unrealistic for us?
• How anti-Serb is it?
• Dangers of caring for the other
• Reduced complexity to Serb/Muslim conflict
• Too little political context
• Unfortunate civilized vs uncivilized them

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Danis Tanovic
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No Mans Land

• 2000 feature film
• Setting Bosnia, June 1993
• Characters Chiki, Nino, Cera
• Sides Serbs and Bosniaks
• UN comes next
• Situation in the trench

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No Mans Land

• 2000 feature film
• Setting Bosnia, June 1993
• Characters Chiki, Nino, Cera
• Sides Serbs and Bosniaks
• UN comes next
• Situation in the trench

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New developments

• Discussion of origins of the war
• Cera returns to life
• Humorous-serious alternations
• Ciki and Nino knew the same girl in school
• UNPROFOR
• Limitations

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Serious issues

• Translation problems
• Competence, training of UN forces
• Will the problem be resolved?

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New developments

• Discussion of origins of the war
• Cera returns to life
• Humorous-serious alternations
• Ciki and Nino knew the same girl in school
• UNPROFOR
• Limitations

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Basis for conflict

• Who started it?
• Revenge

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Serious issues

• Translation problems
• Competence, training of UN forces
• Utter madness cant anyone do anything?
• Will the problem be resolved?

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Film types Heroic (Behind Enemy Lines)

• Overcome obstacles
• Good guys victorious
• Black and white characters

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Non-heroic

• Uncomfortable
• No clear answers
• No easy solutions

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Both

• Strong images
• Action, suspense, romance
• Here no romance

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Reading-Discussion Assignment

• Ivo Andrics Bridge on the Drina
• Read through p.153 for this weekthen finish over
  break

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Whats happening?

• Repercussions of Serbian revolutions
• Weakening of Ottoman Empire
• Taking sides forced choices
• Tragic love story of Fata

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Occupation by Austria-Hungary

• Alihodjas ordeal (at hands of Osman Effendi
  Karamanli)
• Austrian Emperor-Hungarian King announcement to
  the residents
• Friendship of Pop Nikola and Mula Ibrahim
• Political differences
• Reception for Austrian colonel

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Franz Joseph (Habsburg)

• Crowned Emperor of Austria in 1848 at age 18.
• By the summer of 1914 he would be in the 66th
  year of his reign.
• Also crowned King of Hungary in 1867 in an
  attempt to calm the situation with the
  problematic Magyars (Hungarians)
• Dual Monarchy would last until his death in 1916.

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FJI (2)

• Empire lost holdings in both Italy and Germany
• Mainly an eastern European power.
• Franz Josef was sensitive to these losses
• determined not to allow further decay of the
  empire by losing Austro-Hungarian holdings in the
  Balkans to Serbia
• The last monarch of the old school".

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FJI (3)

• Immensely popular among all the various national
  groups that comprised his kingdom
• Attributed to the above average standard of
  living that his subjects enjoyed
• 1914 he rarely left his palaces but it was not
  out of fear of assassination

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FJI (3)

• Lost major wars to France (1848) and Prussia
  (1866)
• Brother, Maximilian, executed in Mexico.
• His son, Crown Prince Rudolph, committed suicide
  in 1889
• Wife's assassinated by an anarchist in Geneva
  (1897)
• Had numerous difficulties with his nephew and
  heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who would be
  assassinated by Serbian nationalists on
  28-Jun-1914 in Sarajevo

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Assassination of Archduke 1914
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Franz Joseph

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Changes

• Viegrad new attention to rules, order,
  organization
• Regulations, permits, limits on personal freedom
• Struggles between old and new
• Urban renewal old torn down, replaced with new
• Stone Han replaced with 2-story barracks
• Lights, cleanliness, Serbs, Jews, and women on
  the bridge

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More stories

• Milan Glasicanin (Serb) gambling with the Devil
• Bukus Gaon (Jew) becomes a gambler

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Occupation by Austria-Hungary

• Alihodjas ordeal (at hands of Osman Effendi
  Karamanli)
• Austrian Emperor-Hungarian King announcement to
  the residents
• Friendship of Pop Nikola and Mula Ibrahim
• Political differences
• Reception for Austrian colonel

63
Franz Joseph (Habsburg)

• Crowned Emperor of Austria in 1848 at age 18.
• By the summer of 1914 he would be in the 66th
  year of his reign.
• Also crowned King of Hungary in 1867 in an
  attempt to calm the situation with the
  problematic Magyars (Hungarians)
• Dual Monarchy would last until his death in 1916.

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FJI (2)

• Empire lost holdings in both Italy and Germany
• Mainly an eastern European power.
• Franz Josef was sensitive to these losses
• determined not to allow further decay of the
  empire by losing Austro-Hungarian holdings in the
  Balkans to Serbia
• The last monarch of the old school".

65
FJI (3)

• Immensely popular among all the various national
  groups that comprised his kingdom
• Attributed to the above average standard of
  living that his subjects enjoyed
• 1914 he rarely left his palaces but it was not
  out of fear of assassination

66
FJI (3)

• Lost major wars to France (1848) and Prussia
  (1866)
• Brother, Maximilian, executed in Mexico.
• His son, Crown Prince Rudolph, committed suicide
  in 1889
• Wife's assassinated by an anarchist in Geneva
  (1897)
• Had numerous difficulties with his nephew and
  heir, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, who would be
  assassinated by Serbian nationalists on
  28-Jun-1914 in Sarajevo

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Assassination of Archduke 1914
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Franz Joseph

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Changes

• Viegrad new attention to rules, order,
  organization
• Regulations, permits, limits on personal freedom
• Struggles between old and new
• Urban renewal old torn down, replaced with new
• Stone Han replaced with 2-story barracks
• Lights, cleanliness, Serbs, Jews, and women on
  the bridge

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More stories

• Milan Glasicanin (Serb) gambling with the Devil
• Bukus Gaon (Jew) becomes a gambler

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Bridge 16-17

• Tradition and change
• Events affecting Viegrad life
• Assassination of Emperors wife
• Reaction of Maistor Pero (Pietro Sola) (identity
  issue)
• Schoolmasters discussion of anarchism 202-03
• Repair of bridge
• Alihodjas reactions
• Large family still obstinate
• Contemplative life refuge fatalism?
• Obsession with fate of the bridge

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More new developments

• Water pipes
• Railway
• Local economy
• Implications for the town

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Political developments

• 1908
• New nationalism new political views Marxism
• Easier communication more discussions
• New tensions authorities and Serbs and Turks
• Proclamation
• Mining of the bridge
• Philosophical reflections

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Documentary Films

• Children of Kosovo 2000 (Deca-Femiyet 2000)
• Ferenc Moldovanyi