Interview By Tina Poglajen
Mirjana Karanović has been one of the most instantly recognizable faces of the cinema of the countries of ex-Yugoslavia at least since the nineties, when she appeared in Emir Kusturica’s cult film “When Father Was Away on Business.” At the Sundance film festival in January, she presented her directorial debut, “A Good Wife,” a film about the wife of a Serbian war criminal who doesn’t come to terms with her husband’s actions during the war until years later, when in their bedroom, she finds a videotape documenting him and his para-military unit executing a group of men.
In addition to being a great piece of cinema, “A Good Wife” is an extremely important film for the cinema of the Balkans, where depictions of war have almost invariably been about the experiences of men, either as survivors, villains or tragic heroes. Both in terms of content and cinematically, the film shows the women’s war experience as radically different and separated from the men’s. Most importantly, in Karanović’s story, women are not just victims without their own narratives but are afforded autonomy in both acting in decision making; and by extension, when choosing to not interfere in the crimes of their husbands and partners for the sake of easy living, are persistently held responsible as well.
“A Good Wife” is currently touring the eastern European festivals such as Sarajevo, Pula, and in the Horizons section of the 51st Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where Women and Hollywood sat down with the director to talk about the motives for making the film and the way it represents the contemporary Serbian society.
W&H: How did you decide to take up film direction in addition to acting and what was it like after so many years in front of the camera?
MK: It’s not that I wanted to take up another profession. I see it as a broadening of the space in which I can express myself artistically. I started writing the screenplay thinking I would take on the lead role, but although it was a story coming from within me, I hadn’t planned on directing it as well. I was interested in Milena and how, through events in her life, she developed as a character. Her story was pivotal to me, but through her, I could also tell the stories of the women around her, especially the ones that shared her experience of the nineties, a decade that thoroughly and irreversibly changed the day-to-day life. It was a time that had made people see themselves and their own actions in a different way. It brought a sort of an intensity to life and it was far from being pleasant.
That was what I was focusing on, and even a few months before we were scheduled to begin filming, I thought someone else will direct it, and I will be controlling everything and make sure they do it my way. Then I realized I needn’t hide behind anyone. The person who would have taken on the role of the director would not really be free to act as they pleased — I wouldn’t let them, I’d want to direct it myself, I’d keep interfering. It wouldn’t be fair to anyone, neither myself nor the people I love and respect, so even though I was a bit scared, I decided to do it myself.
Both the producers and the DOP had some doubts, but I insisted. When afterward, we didn’t get a lot of funds, it made it easier in a way: I knew I had at least the right to try and knew I have the right to fail as well. I knew I’d manage somehow even if it all went wrong. I had earned it with my career.
But then, when we were working on the film day after day, I realized I had been living with this character for four years; I had created the reality of the film — there simply was no part or detail of the story that I wouldn’t have had thought out. Working with the cast and the crew, I realized I had the answers to all of their questions; I knew precisely how to direct the DOP and the cast, and I also created a space for their personal creative input. I knew they would give me exactly what my story needed.
W&H: The story of “A Good Wife” shows a whole other feminine side of the Balkan war narrative.
MK: For me, it’s just a personal — even if not autobiographical — story, a story from my own point of view. A woman’s point of view is something that usually brings to light new dimensions of the story we’ve heard before. In the Balkans — as well as almost everywhere around the world — it is slowly, but surely making its way onto the center stage, finding a place for itself. It’s breaking free of being so rare that it keeps being seen as some kind of an endangered species. So far, the history and all of its important events belonged to the men, but I think more and more women around the world are determined to enter the professions and spaces traditionally reserved for men, even though the societies around the world sometimes still don’t look upon it nicely. Still, I expect to see more and more of these kinds of stories.
But really, I just wanted to tell my own story, I wasn’t thinking about it being “a woman’s story.” I really wanted to express myself through it. It wasn’t so much about career or artistic ambition, because I’ve had plenty of that through the years. Now, I want to explore.
W&H: In cinematic depictions of the war in the Balkans, women are usually relegated to the roles of victims of men’s violence. “A Good Wife” portrays another reality, similar to the writing of Simone de Beauvoir, who saw women as men’s accomplices, consenting to their own oppression by remaining passive and refusing to take on the “anxiety of existence.”
MK: This was very important for me. In the nineties, I was very active in anti-war movements, fighting against the regime that made the peoples of the Balkans so horribly miserable, even the people whose leaders they pretended to be. Serbia held elections throughout the war, but the same politicians kept winning over and over again, while the protests outside were also always attended by the same people. A large majority kept quiet, thinking they can’t do anything anyway. They had their jobs, led their own lives. Like them, I consider my protagonist accountable for what happened.
Within her family, with her behavior and her attitude, she enabled her husband to think that his life is OK. That it is OK to cross the border with his unit, carry out the tasks he has been ordered to do and get paid well for it; to come home, where his wife is waiting, someone dear to him, a genuinely good person, who would never hurt a fly. She loves her family, loves her children and her friends, she is a valuable member of the society. Still, she never asked: “What did you do there?” even though he brought weapons home, even though she washed his uniform. He was giving her money, and she never asked herself about it, because she didn’t want to deal with it. She thought it’s none of her business. She is a woman, a wife, with her own responsibilities — the house, the children, her personal relationship with her husband, but she never interfered with his work.
A lot of women are like that, thinking it’s none of their business. It’s very common. Since we’re children, we are being told not to worry about these things, to let them handle it. It’s not something women should deal with. I am talking about a very polarized way of thinking, but still, both men and women agree to it. She agreed because it was more comfortable, because she likes her position of being protected, she likes having someone to take care of her. And I’ve envisioned the character of the husband as an ideal husband in the Balkans. This is a man who makes sure his family has enough money, who comes home when he said he will, who doesn’t embarrass his wife in public with his mistresses, who is a respectable member of the society, who has good connections … Their family is a Serbian ideal — and I wanted to show its dark side. There usually is one.
But her responsibility for what happened is real. While writing the screenplay, we were asking ourselves whether she knew, and if she did, in what way consciously? Or was it there in the peripheral vision of her mind’s eye, something that’s always present, but never seen, because she never turned her head to see it?
W&H: In a way, people like her husband were the working-class of the Serbian politics: they were persuaded by the ruling nationalistic ideology to carry out the dirty work during the war, and were the ones that had to deal with the psychological consequences after.
MK: Yes — and her husband is not the only one. Dejan, who was by his side during the war, and his wife Suzana, have lost everything. Dejan has lost everything he acquired during the war, he has fallen into ruin, and she has physically fallen apart. You can see it in her eyes that she knew all along. She knows, and she is trying to suppress it with her way of life, with her alcohol abuse. You can see the difference between a woman who didn’t want to see it and a woman whose husband confided in her with everything, who in a way shared his experience and now shares his memories and a guilty conscience.
There are several ways in which the people participated in the war in the nineties. When I saw stories about people being killed on TV, the first thing I always thought was how the mother feels, the mother of the boy they killed, now that she’s watching it. But then, I thought, “how does the wife feel, the wife of the murderer?” Suddenly you’re watching someone you live with, have children with, share your life with, someone who always treated you and your children well — killing people.
W&H: How does the younger generation in Serbia deal with the past?
MK: In my film, I depicted three kids, and in each of them [is] a part of Serbia’s younger generation. The oldest daughter is an activist, an intellectual, an artist. It’s someone who knows, who asks questions, who takes sides. She — Nataša — is closest to me in character. Perhaps it’s taking it too far to say there’s a kid like that in every Serbian family, but there are a lot of them, the girls who fight, who have their own idealism, their own passion, a social conscience, not just minding their own career and its promotion.
Then, there is the son, the middle child, a sweet creature — he does everything he has to, he does sports, is a good kid, but really, his parents bought him a flat in Belgrade, he’s someone whose mother keeps doing laundry for him, he has his car. He is living a comfortable life, he wouldn’t really want anyone to expect too much of him. His studies are too difficult, the teachers are asking too much, they’re too strict and he doesn’t think that’s OK. There are a lot of young people like him. You can’t really resent him, he just wants to have it easy in life.
And then there’s the youngest daughter, the father’s favorite, an excellent student, but her plans for life are to marry someone rich, have a lot of money, live easy and maybe do something eventually, but not in the sense of any kind of hard work, because the important thing is being pretty. She’s intelligent, she’s much smarter than her brother, but she’s cunning in a way, in a way that the younger generation is, who sometimes seem to have lost the collective ideals and only concerned about their individual future. I’m not saying the whole younger generation can be grouped into these three types, but there are a lot of young people who fit the description.
W&H: As so many women lost their partners during the war, and because of the traditional upbringing, divorce seems very radical for these people.
MK: Yes, absolutely. While I was working on the screenplay, this didn’t even seem as an option — how can she, as a person, even do it? She doesn’t have a job. I envisioned her as having studied architecture, but getting pregnant after two years and quitting her studies, thinking maybe to get back to them when the baby grows a bit. But then the baby grew a bit and he got her pregnant again, so she thought she’d wait a little bit longer, but then the third baby came and she gave up. I think — either intentionally or unintentionally — this was his way of keeping her for himself. But she consented to it, too. If there wasn’t for the war, her dilemma would never have existed. If there was no war, none of us would be thinking about these things. Until the nineties, politics didn’t interest me one bit. But when something like that happens, you can’t pretend not to see the world around you anymore.
