Today's highly mediatized wars raise in a newly urgent way longstanding ethical and aesthetic concerns about the role of film in documenting, representing, and intervening in war. These issues have been thoroughly engaged in Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav film over the long 20th-century. While socialist Yugoslavia emerged as a country out of the genocidal and fratricidal Second World War, it would ultimately cease to exist amidst a series of bloody wars in the 1990s. Between these two wars and up until the present, Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav film has wrestled in a highly self-aware way with crucial questions at the heart of the filmic portrayal of war.
This course introduces students to the history and legacy of war and conflict in the former Yugoslavia, while giving them a solid foundation in film criticism. Its syllabus showcases some of the most critically acclaimed films produced in the region – films which have had global impact and, in crucial instances, created new possibilities for what a war film can (and should) look like.
The course will be consistently attuned to the following core issues: What characteristic genres or tropes recur in representing war in film? Do war films differ when they are told from the perspective of civilians or soldiers, women or men, victims or perpetrators? What role do “truth” or “accuracy” play in navigating between lived experience and filmic representation? Is the changing face of war across the long 20th century matched by changes in its treatment in film? What are the ethical stakes of filming war, of choosing a documentary or fictional mode? How have technological advances changed film conventions and possibilities?
In addressing these questions, the course uses the richness, diversity, and artistic excellence of Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav film, with the goal of preparing students to draw transnational comparisons with other cinemas, regions, and eras. It gives students practice in locating specific artistic trends while comparing and contrasting films, and understanding the historical events and debates that have surrounded Yugoslav conflicts over the course of the 20th century. Above all, the course allows students to engage deeply with the power and possibilities the film medium has not only to represent wartime and postwar realities, but to intervene in historically grounded social debates about a lasting peace for the future.