Mirisi, zlato i tamjan film

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Production year: 1971

Duration: 99 minuta

Technique: 35mm widescreen, black and white

Genre:

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Director:
Babaja, Ante

Production house:
Jadran film

Camera:
Kališnik Janez

Synopsis:
A middle aged intellectual, Mali, who is a former Partisan, lives in a small island town. For many years, his wife Draga has been taking care of an old woman, Madona, a former landlady whose possessions have been taken away by Communists. Caring for Madona becomes the only reason to live in Mali and Draga’s empty lives.

Cast:
Sven Lasta (Mali), Milka Podrug-Kokotović (Draga), Ivona Petri /voice Nada Subotić/ (Madona), Nataša Nešović (Erminija), Tanja Knezić (sisters of charity's juveline protégé)

Country of production:
Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (Socialist Republic of Croatia)

Screenplay:
Ante Babaja, Božidar Violić (based on the same titled novel by Slobodan Novak)

Music by:
arhivska

Edited by:
Lida Braniš-Bobinac

Set designer:
Drago Turina

Costume designer:

Commentary:
This is certainly the most grotesque film by Ante Babaja, which successfully combines naturalism and symbolism. It is especially fascinating because it is an adaptation of a literary original that according to the usual criteria was considered completely unsuitable for turning into a film (Novak’s introspective and reflexive novel). At the same time it is one of the most provocative films of Croatian cinema in the socialist period: it openly shows absurdities of the reality in which an already desperate existence becomes even more desperate.

Screening permit: from February 9, 1971

Export: Poland