53rd San Francisco International Film Festival 22 April - 6 May 2010
FILMS/
ORDINARY PEOPLE
New Directors
France/Switzerland/Serbia, 2009, 80 minutes
SHOWTIMES
Fri, Apr 30 / 9:00 / Kabuki / ORDI30K
Mon, May 03 / 8:55 / PFA / ORDI03P
Wed, May 05 / 7:15 / Kabuki / ORDI05K
CREDITS
- dir
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Vladimir Perisic
- prod
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Miléna Poylo, Anthony Doncque, Gilles Sacuto
- scr
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Vladimir Perisic, Alice Winocour
- cam
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Simon Beaufils
- editor
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Martial Salomon
- cast
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Relja Popovic, Boris Isakovic, Miroslav Stevanovic
- source
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Global Film Initiative, 145 Ninth Street, Suite 105, San Francisco, CA 94103. FAX: 415-934-9501. EMAIL: gfi-info@globalfilms.org.
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CAUSES
Social Justice, War & Conflict
A chilling, unflinching look at a raw recruit’s evolution into a killing machine, visualized in a minimalist, matter-of-fact style, Ordinary People promises to inspire much discussion. Always remaining with the point of view of its naïve, unthinking protagonist, the film observes 20-year-old conscript Dzoni (Relja Popovi?) over the course of one long, hot summer day that changes his life in ways he seems barely able to comprehend. The day starts as he and his barracks mates climb aboard a bus to a remote, abandoned farmhouse where a horrific task ultimately awaits them. There’s an air of foreboding as the soldiers sit in the sun, smoking, drinking and making terse conversation. As other buses pull in and unload grim, silent men in civilian clothes, it becomes wrenchingly clear what Dzoni’s unit will be required to do. Set in an unspecified time in an unspecified place that is clearly the Balkans, this disturbing film has a universal resonance. It shows how the taking of human life can become a banal drudgery, just like any other unpleasant, repetitive task, and how soldiers can be brutalized as well as brutal. As Dzoni silently nurses a beer at the end of his long day, we see him examine again the new calluses on his hands, made from the constant loading and firing of his rifle. We the audience are not only witnesses, but also have the uneasy feeling of complicity in his crimes.
—Alissa Simon
Presented in association with Global Film Initiative.
