Ordinary People

I saw this film at the IFFR. After the soundless end most people just sat motionless for a while.

The movie is a merciless and relentless registration of how this abstract term we heard so much about, "ethnic cleansing", could have been in reality. We see a group of young soldiers (the main character is yet beardless) being put to work to execute "the enemy", defenseless boys and men of ages between about 15 and 70. We see young men, boys, being maneuvered into actions of a magnitude and gravity that's completely inconceivably to them. They can not really deal with the situation, and so they don't, they just do what they are told to do and blur their minds with liquor.

There is no pleasing of the audience in this movie; there are no hero's, there's no music, no beautiful scenery, no fast action, and not even judgment. We just see a, apparently very realistic, registration of actions in a slow easy pace, that makes it possible to feel a bit of what the young soldiers must have felt: boredom, heat, confusion, emptiness.

This complete lack of 'pleasers' is what makes this movie very strong, but it's also it's only weak point: it makes it harder to reach the big audience it deserves.

It is absolutely a travesty to call this movie superficial, a word used by one of the reviewers. It is anything but superficial. You may feel justified to call it boring, but that is only because your intellectual or emotional faculty has not reached the high level that is required to fully appreciate this film. But to call it superficial? Come on, what word should we use to describe the great majority of Hollywood and even international movies then?

I think the director of this art-house film deserves several special recognitions. First of all, the long shot of the wild landscape of Serbia and the use of the ambient sound of nature make this movie truly unique and powerful at the same time. From scenes of nature, we can deeply understand the feeling of the protagonist and the general mood of the story. Next, although several scenes in the film come dangerously close to become excessively long and self-indulgent, the director manages to maintain the focus of the movie and to let those scenes serve their intended purpose, which is to give the movie more depth and thought. Last but not the least, this Serbian film is realist cinema at its best. Every scene is raw, authentic and suffused with realism. It is almost a documentary with very believable actors and storyline. The sequence on the bus where shades of sunlight is reflected through the trees outside and onto the character's face is a prime example of realist film-making.

Fortunately for me and many other audiences who appreciate realist cinema, the director did not make the mistake that many Hollywood directors have made, which is to give the movie a happy ending. Its ending is profoundly sad, but it feels real.

The movie is practically motionless and with no apparent story. However. the weight of the events is present.

The title "Ordinary people" represents perfectly the content of the movie. We sometimes wonder how it was possible to murder your neighbors, people who probably did nothing wrong to you; how it was possible to take part in a systematic cleansing without standing up against it, and just because somebody with little or no authority gave you orders to do it.

The story is very similar to Schoah - can anybody explain mass killings of Jews during the WWII? Ordinary people killing ordinary people. It will always remain a mystery, as suggested by the movie.

Probably one of the most boring movies I've ever watched. Seriously boring.

I get that some are deep enough to appreciate the meaning behind the "nothingness" (if that's the right word) in it, and I guess I understand it too once certain people have pointed it out, but it still doesn't make it worth spending 2 hours watching this. About 20 minutes in, I was tired of watching people sitting under a tree and staring at the sky that I started doing my nails and eyebrows and I still didn't miss a thing that happened. And there's so little dialogue here that I could recall every single thing the characters said.

I do like the concept and the plot, though. I just wasn't expecting such a drag.