OPTIMISTS’ CORNER STEFAN ARSENIJEVIĆ

Melodrama as Avant-Garde

He achieved great success in his late twenties in the field of expensive film art! Having won a Golden Bear in Berlin and an Oscar nomination for best short film, he continues to pile up the accolades… Recently, his life’s dream came true – he made a feature film. For Stefan Arsenijević this is only the beginning…

Brandomania, August 2008

At the age of just 26, he became a Serbian film star and a bulwark of domestic cinematography. He shot to the centre of the European film industry’s spotlight in 2003 when he won a Golden Bear at the Berlinale for his short film, “(A)Torsion”. As a child, he dreamt of becoming a magician, but he soon realised that film magic was much more exciting. Cute, witty and pretty experienced for a man in his early thirties, he has not taken any short-cuts on his path to success. Stefan is forever racking up new successes in his impressive CV. One such he achieved this year: he directed his first feature film. “Love and Other Crimes”, starring Anica Dobra and Vuk Kostić , which had its world premiere in February, at this year`s international film festival in Berlin as part of the Panorama section. While film buffs are impatiently waiting for the Serbian premiere scheduled for 20th June at the Cinema City festival in Novi Sad, Belgrade audiences will have to wait until September to see his feature film debut, when it hits cinemas. However, Arsenijević never rests. Currently cruising the festival circuit plugging his new brainchild, he admits that he is already seized by a new creative disquiet and is preparing a short film that he wants to shoot this summer: Even though I haven’t quite “recovered” from the previous one, I feel the need to work, and shooting a feature film requires at least two years’ preparation – writing a screenplay, finding the money… Because I want to start shooting as soon as possible, I am returning to short films, which are my trade mark. The eleventh one already… a simple love story – a road movie melodrama about a young man who thinks he has found the love of his life who lives in Berlin. He leaves Belgrade for Germany in search of her, but his plans are foiled by various events… It will be improvisation, something I’ve always feared, the scenario is just a starting point. I think that I’m ready to face that demon of mine now.

I am absolutely convinced that romance goes out of our lives, not only here, but throughout the world too. That is why I wanted my first feature film to be completely steeped in melodrama. I am aware that it was brave and that some won’t like it.

Your feature film is touted as being romantic even though, essentially, it’s a grim transitional story. You are faithful to melodrama, which you consider to be the most taxing genre. However, our cinematography is not exactly bursting with romantic films?

When I think of pure melodramas, that really is the case, and those are mostly exceptions – maybe “Love and Fashion”, “You Love Only Once”, “Something in Between”, “An Officer with a Rose”… Though my film is not a pure melodrama, but a kind of fusion – there are crime and tragic-comic elements. Personally, I’m into mixing things up, that is why it contains some surreal scenes, and it can be viewed as a social melodrama. When we were promoting the film a year before shooting, and we were looking for co-producers, we made a gadget and heart-shaped lollipops with “Love and Other Crimes” written on one side and on the other, “Ingredients: Melodrama 11%, Comedy 8%...” That’s something everyone still remembers. It’s interesting that you haven’t had any melodrama in world cinematography in recent years either. Apart from “Titanic”, which is a disaster movie at the same time, and “The End of the Affair” based on Graham Greene`s book… we’ve had only romantic comedies on offer, which is something else altogether. It is probably a consequence of our living in very cynical times, where one cannot make a classic love story.

Does that mean that real life lacks romance?
I am absolutely convinced that romance goes out of our lives, not only here, but throughout the world too. That is why I wanted my first feature film to be completely steeped in melodrama. I am aware that it was brave and that some won’t like it. I made that choice at the outset and I didn’t hide behind humour, which I usually do. I think that melodrama is the only avant-garde left in cinematography nowadays. We live in times where everything is possible in film. There are no limits, all taboos have been smashed, there is nothing you can’t do, even in mainstream film! I consider myself to be building a new romantic revolution (laughs).

Did you foresee a social trend or … ?  
That rational-emotional, heart-reason change has gone on throughout history. I read some analysts just before the end of millennium, when disaster movies were all the rage, who were saying that a new sentimentalism or a new emotionalism was on the horizon at the beginning of the 21st century – something that never actually happened. Film critics and culturologists were thinking in that sense during the Nineties and though it hasn’t happened yet, I believe it eventually will.

The film is called “Love and Other Crimes”. Does that mean love is a crime?  
I hate it when people ask me that, but it is, of course, the most logical question to ask me. It is a crime, but it would be stupid to give it away. Maybe the best example from the film is a scene where one character asks: “Well. OK. What did she say?”, and the other one replies: “There is no forgiveness.” Then the first one comes to the conclusion: “So, she still loves me.” I tried to address love on a number of levels. It is a very complex feeling and love is not just about little birds and flowers. I have tried out all its forms and all those areas of emotion that make it very complicated and contradictory. Maybe some people are lucky in love and they feel fantastic the whole time and the sun is shining, but I get the impression that that doesn’t exist.


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