Shadows of the Ancestors
2003; Wayne State University Press; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
1559-7989
Autores Tópico(s)Romani and Gypsy Studies
ResumoShadows of the Ancestors (Skupljaci perja/ I Even Met Happy Gypsies. Aleksandar Petrovic, Yugoslavia, 1967)1 Aleksandar Petrovic's film Skupljaci perja/I Even Met Happy Gypsies (Yugoslavia, 1967) is of double significance for the history of (ex)Yugoslav cinema. First, the Award of the Cannes Jury given to Skupljaci perja in 1967 was, for a long time, the biggest success of the national cinema. Second, and more importantly, the film not only stands as the best example of Petrovic's auteurist 'handwriting' but was also a thematic and stylistic breakthrough in Yugoslav cinema. Theme, narration, style, visual qualities, and music perfectly merge together, creating one of the finest examples of Eastern European film of the sixties. The story achieved international popularity2 and got excellent critiques, thus breaking new ground and initiating a long line of 'Gypsy' films coming from the wider region (the Balkans, Central Europe). Petrovic established the familiar images of 'Balkan exodcs,' of which Gypsies are an essential part. The codified 'ethno' populism involved elements like: worship of freedom, nomadic romanticism, love confirmed by death, adoration of music, doomed pride and life, mysterious origins and a past not totally unlike that of Byron's romantic heroes or Rousseau's noble savages. The presence of many of these elements in more recent films strongly confirms Petrovic's film as a magnificent ancestor of the 'genre.' These impressionable images, interpreted as parts of the national/ self/representation (in the succession of works from Petrovic to Kusturica's Dom za vesanje/Time of the Gypsies (Yugoslavia, 1989) support the dangerous generalization-spoken aloud in Yugoslavia and in halfwhisper abroad-that the most popular embodiments of the Serb/ Yugoslav as dangerous Others' are the Gypsy figures. Olivera Katarina (Lenka in Skupljaci peija, credited as Olivera Vuco) concludes that after Petrovic's memorable visions 'for people abroad colored Gypsy houses were the epitome of Yugoslavia. For all of them Yugoslavia was one big Gypsy setdement.'3 Supporting the controversial nature of 'Gypsy' films-also made as the text for reflection about Serbian marginality in the European framework and desire to change that-is the fact that the director and actors are not Romanies and do not belong to the ethnic group the film so authentically depicts. Even though there are rumours that the director is of Romani origin and even though he displays a detailed knowledge of ethnographic details, Petrovic (1929-1994) is not of Romani descent but distinctively belongs to the dominant Serbian population. Both Bekim Feh-miu (playing the lead role of Bora), a popular and good looking actor of Albanian origin, as well as the greatest Serbian 'film partisan' Bata Zivojinovic (Mirta), had to learn some Romani in order to master the demanding roles of Roms they were entrusted with. Olivera Katarina sang original songs that later dominated the radio popularity charts while she cherished the image of the 'white Gypsy.' Only Gordana Jovanovic (Tisa) was a member of the Romani minority and her real life story paralleled the cinematic one: the success of the film did not help her escape the fate of decline, crime and, eventually, disappearance. Thus, in spite of the exotic embellishment, the film realistically portrays the Romanies as social mavericks and bizarre marginals that live in their own separate world. Skupljaci perja is easily recognized as true melodrama, the hypertrophied emotionalism of which is intensified by the Gypsy protagonists who love, suffer, and hate more exuberantly than the rest of the world constrained by the 'norms of civilization.' Their impassioned way of being makes their lives 'bigger than' the lives of others. The story of the doomed love affair between Beli Bora (Bekim Feh-miu) and Tisa (Gordana Jovanovic) is given in poetic narration, like a ballad of love and jealousy. Bora is a gambler, a nomad, involved in feather trade. …
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