Category: Culture

Culture, Reviews

Eddington or the Tragedy of Anti-Political Pintrest Protests

The first truly good film I’ve seen this year is Eddington, the latest feature from Ari Aster – whose Midsommar I also really liked. Unlike more personal Midsommar, this is a dark social satire, incisively dissecting the U.S. (and by extension almost any Western society) during the pandemic and the BLM protests. Without giving too much away, the film explores what happens to a small town when various political … Continue reading Eddington or the Tragedy of Anti-Political Pintrest Protests

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Culture, Translations

Vladimir Dvorniković: The Psyche of the Yugoslav Melancholy (Part 1)

Ever since I almost miraculously ended up with a copy of “The Psyche of the Yugoslav Melancholy” I wanted to have it translated into English and have it popularized to the wider audience. It is an essay which cuts deeply and clearly into the heart of the matter – a rarity in the current field of social sciences and Humanities. That is doubly true in … Continue reading Vladimir Dvorniković: The Psyche of the Yugoslav Melancholy (Part 1)

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Culture, Life

Tell Them You Love Me (2023): The Victims of Sentimentalism

Desperate for an enemy But too afraid to kill Use the pain of someone else And triumph for their will And spill the blood Of the arrogant mosquitoes –       Ezra Koenig, Sympathy A few weeks ago, I watched a uniquely American – that is, riveting and bizarrely larger than life – story of an intellectually disabled person being abused by people around him, who all … Continue reading Tell Them You Love Me (2023): The Victims of Sentimentalism

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Culture, Reviews

Cognac (1988) and Born to be a warrior (1994): Yugoslavia through a “for export” lens

I often criticise Serbian and regional movie production for being excessively focused on “for export” films, which do not seek to portray any real stories, but just fit into the cottage industries of war-time trauma, Eastern European miserabilism or “political commentary”. Still I found myself greatly enjoying two very explicitly Yugoslav/Serbian “for export” films, which, however did not seek any prestige on festival circuits but … Continue reading Cognac (1988) and Born to be a warrior (1994): Yugoslavia through a “for export” lens

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Culture, Guide to Belgrade, Reviews, The Belgradist

Exploring Džej Ramadanovski’s Dorćol on film and in reality

When I saw that there is a film in the works about Džej Ramadanovski, a Serbian-Roma pop star who passed tragically during at the age of 56 in 2020, I feared it would be another slapdash cash-grab riding on the wave of “Toma”, a hit 2021 film about Serbian folk singer Toma Zdravković.   My scepticism was even greater as I did not like “Toma”. … Continue reading Exploring Džej Ramadanovski’s Dorćol on film and in reality

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Balkans, Culture

Yugoslav Musical Calendar

Given that most of former Yugoslavia is still agricultural or tied to the weather through tourism it is no wonder that seasons still play a large part in its music. I decided to make a little playlist with the best songs which can be tied to specific seasons, months and hoildays so that you can see how the Yugomind conceptualises time. Whether it is Ana … Continue reading Yugoslav Musical Calendar

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Culture, Reviews

Lost Country: In search of Tomasi di Lampedusa and Proust in Serbia

In November 1996, my mother, grandma and I were excitedly chanting „Bando crevna“ (Red gangsters!) during the mass anti-Milošević protests in Belgrade. I was 8 at the time and was mesmerised by the thrill, energy and fun that were on the street of Belgrade for those few months after the contested election. There was a mini-renaissance or music and art happening on the streets, a … Continue reading Lost Country: In search of Tomasi di Lampedusa and Proust in Serbia

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Culture, Reviews

“Barbie, the Movie”: Different kind of plastic, not fantastic

Whenever I think about the heap of my toys in the basement or even going to a toy store, I feel an intense pang of sadness. Toys promise a simple happy life and sheer joy one can feel by touching something as simple as a piece of industrially-crafted plastic. Like that promise and joy, they also are forgotten and left behind as soon as one … Continue reading “Barbie, the Movie”: Different kind of plastic, not fantastic

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Culture

Rusploitation in Yugoslav Pop

Despite the reductive and strangely common view in the West that Yugoslavia was yet another Soviet Communist country, the relationship between SFRY and the USSR was a complex one, especially after 1948, when Tito was thrown out of the Comintern by Stalin. The USSR was undeniably key in the WWII liberation of Yugoslavia and victory of the Partisans, however Yugoslavia, since 1948, very much saw … Continue reading Rusploitation in Yugoslav Pop

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Culture, Life

„Young Adult“, middle age

There is a theory that a person’s musical taste ossifies in their teens and is pretty much set as they enter their 20s. Going by my own experience and that of many of my friends, that may not exactly be the case, but that may be because two formative films for me in understating the adulthood (or middle age) are Jason Reitman’s “Up in the … Continue reading „Young Adult“, middle age

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Culture, Reviews

The new humanism of Ostlund, White and Sorrentino

„What is there to like? It is just rich people talking about their lives.“The guy I was speaking to did not like La Grande Bellezza and could not understand why I was so obsessed with it. I am not sure how I answered, and if I did at all, but in the coming years, since that night in 2015, the global film industry moved more … Continue reading The new humanism of Ostlund, White and Sorrentino

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Culture, The Belgradist

Danica Crnogorčević: the trad villainess of the Balkan Arts scene

How a trad Christian pop folk singer became the most controversial person in ex-Yugoslavia When you listen to Danica Crnogorčević’s music, you will be instantly amazed by her voice. Wonderfully colourful and powerful, she comes across as a Montenegrin Enya, and in a lot of ways the two share a lot in common. Like Enya, she cuts an almost impossibly wholesome figure: a church-going (her … Continue reading Danica Crnogorčević: the trad villainess of the Balkan Arts scene

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Culture

The fall of Yugoslav civilisation: Doomers at the gates

In the library of my grandmother’s salon in Avalska, between the many Marxist and Yugoslav communist tomes, stood a hard bound copy of „Civilisation“ by Kenneth Clark, published by Mladost from Zagreb in 1972. The fact that this book, a seductive (and often derided) statmeet of Western cultural supremacy,  was translated into Serbo-Croatian and published in a socialist only three years after it appeared in … Continue reading The fall of Yugoslav civilisation: Doomers at the gates

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Culture, Politics

Pedo-Satanist elites and all that: How to make it as an Eastern European creative?

It rarely happens that I am transfixed by art, however almost two decades ago, I could not stop staring at very haunting painting of Santa Clause on a morgue table, and portraits of children, blankly looking at me while sitting uncomfortably, scantily clad, in a slaughterhouse-like setting. I was in one of the public art galleries in Central Belgrade, which, as galleries around the world … Continue reading Pedo-Satanist elites and all that: How to make it as an Eastern European creative?

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Balkans, Culture, Politics, Travel

Non-Western Balkans: an identity struggle

Some time ago, overcome by a listicle-making urge, I considered putting together a playlist of highly orientalist Yugoslav songs with entries such as Bebi Dol’s Mustafa and Brekvica’s “Loša”. While trawling though YouTube I realised the absurdity at the heart of the endeavour: much of our pop music is “oriental” in the sense that it was influenced by Turkish (or wider Silk road) rhythms and … Continue reading Non-Western Balkans: an identity struggle

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Balkans, Culture, Reviews, Travel

Terra, Kikinda: How a local artist used home turf to create a world’s best terracotta art collection

As a twenty-something third year student at Belgrade’s art Academy in 1960s, Slobodan Kojić dreamt big. A Kikinda native, he envisaged creating an art colony which would make use of his native city’s clay pits – which powered the city’s brick and roof tile industry – so artists could create majestic, grandiose works of terracotta. The use or clay in the arts in what is … Continue reading Terra, Kikinda: How a local artist used home turf to create a world’s best terracotta art collection

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Culture, Life, Reviews

The Consolation of Hypertrophy: Samuel Fussell’s “Muscle: Confessions of the unlikely bodybuilder” by Samuel Wilson Fussell

Reading Camille Paglia’s essays in  “Sex, Art and American Culture”, I came across a book that very much appealed to me, especially given that I only became passionate about going to the gym on the cusp of my 30s. She gave it the highest praise, in her own characteristic way: “Muscle, sympathetically read as an archetypal hero saga of embattled masculinity, exposes the parochialism, preachiness, … Continue reading The Consolation of Hypertrophy: Samuel Fussell’s “Muscle: Confessions of the unlikely bodybuilder” by Samuel Wilson Fussell

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Culture

Dejan Milićević: King of Yugoslav 90s Camp and Colour

Ever since MTV started airing non-stop music videos in 1980s, Yugoslav pop stars were keen to embrace the style and creativity of the medium. From the get go there were many creative attempts with the format from very arty and conceptual videos of VIS Idoli to sexy  high production videos to Lepa Brena’s songs. Slovenian controversial art-band Laibach’s video for Life is Life even managed … Continue reading Dejan Milićević: King of Yugoslav 90s Camp and Colour

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Culture, Reviews

Art though Politics: “Hitler and the power of Aesthetics”, Frederic Spotts

Imagine a state where the government works hard not only to build crucial infrastructure projects but to elevate the tastes of the people through lavish funding of the arts and protects them from contemporary kitsch. A country where every larger town would have an opera and which would invest in making its citizens healthy and joyful through various initiatives. A country led by a ruler … Continue reading Art though Politics: “Hitler and the power of Aesthetics”, Frederic Spotts

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Belgrade, Culture

Serbia and Yugoslavia at the World Fairs (1): 1885-1939

Ever since the world was sufficiently globalised to allow for a common cultural language of admiration for technology and industry in mid-19th century, there have been expositions which allowed every country to show their might, progress and peculiarity on the world stage. It all started with the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace of 1851, inside the Hyde Park, which dazzled the inhabitants of the … Continue reading Serbia and Yugoslavia at the World Fairs (1): 1885-1939

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