Trama

Convinced that his subtenant is a spy and an enemy of the state, a man falls into deep paranoia which leads to absurd and destructive chain of events.

Ilija Chvorovic from Belgrade, who spent a couple of years in prison on Goli Otok because of Stalinism, was called for a routine interview at the local police station. There, the interrogator routinely questions him about his tenant, Petar Jakovljevic, a tailor who worked for 20 years in a capitalist state, in France. After a few minutes, Ilija was allowed to go home, but he was so overcome by nervousness and paranoia that he began to doubt Petar. As soon as he returned home, he began to complain to his wife Danica, that they should never have rented him an apartment. Ilija's imagination begins to work and he begins to imagine that Petar could be a terrorist, who wants to overthrow the state. Soon, she starts spying on him, to the astonishment of Danica, who is more concerned about their daughter Sonja, who as a dental graduate has not had a job for years. Ilija calls the state security inspector on the phone and begins to report to him about Petar's movements and some of his encounters with "suspicious" people, but he does not take him seriously. Soon Ilija buys a camera with a telephoto lens and starts constantly spying on Petar and his friends, from the spa to walking in the forest. His brother Djura joins him in spying. One evening Ilija appears injured and with torn clothes and tells how someone tried to deliberately run him over with a car while he was on the street, to make it look like an accident. Soon, Danica also begins to support him unreservedly, while Sonja already sees a mentally ill man in her father and does not fall for his demagoguery. They quickly move on to the next step; Djura captures Petar's friends, mostly innocent intellectuals and academics, ties them up and takes them to his basement where he starts beating them and forcing them to confess their guilt and terrorist plans. Petar, who wanted to say goodbye, also returns to the house because he is traveling to New York and asks Danica why Ilija keeps watching him. At that moment, Ilija and Djura burst into the house and tied him to a chair and started slapping him, demanding that he confess everything to them. He tells them they are delusional, but they don't believe him. Djura briefly leaves the house to go get the professor who "confessed everything" under the beatings, and Ilija himself continues to question Petar. But, from the great excitement, Ilija has a heart attack, so Petar calls an ambulance and leaves the house tied to a chair to catch a flight to New York. Ilija, in pain, tells Djura's wife on the phone that Djura should "stop all flights at the airport", and then goes on all fours after Petar. Crawling down the street, Ilija is followed by his dog, in a grotesque final scene.—Dragan Antulov <dragan.antulov@altbbs.fido.hr>