Zenica

`Zenica` is a delicate melodrama about an engineer working in the founding days of Zenica steel industry. His wife appears and finds out that he is living in brutal conditions. Engineer struggles with such conditions and handles the hard work while she refuses to live such a life and their marriage starts falling apart.

This was Jovan Zivanovic`s debut and in this feature he stretches his creative muscles. The style reminds of gritty Warner Bros. social films and the ideology isn`t as socialist as you might expect in a film that was made in Communist Yugoslavia.

The acting is quite efficient and in this film Zivanovic crossbreeds the typical urban cast with some rural henchemen to fine results.

The direction is precise. Accents are well used and this film can be easily compared to contemporary American features of the era.

Sadly, Jovan Zivanovic has yet to achieve the deserved critical praise, because he wasn`t understood during his lifetime and active career.