COLUMN | ‘Where The Road Leads’ film: A clash of cultures

Express News Service

Nina Ogjnanovic’s Where The Road Leads is an enchanting whimsy of a film. A short and sweet reverie that beguiles and befuddles with many abstractions even while dwelling on some basic temporal truths. Where The Road Leads is all about how the unexpected arrival of a stranger (Zlatan Vidovic) in a remote Serbian village changes the daily drift and rhythm of the place and its people.

The residents are divided over him. Is he one of the workers at the highway construction site? The revelation of his identity and connection with the place leads to a community feast in which misunderstandings and prejudices lead to hostilities with two drunk no-gooders—Petar (Ninoslav Culum) and Pavre (Vladimir Maksimovic)—taking a vow to kill “the new guy”. It’s for the head of the village, Mr Djura (Igor Filipovic), who largely appears under the barber’s razor, perennially getting shaved in the film, to make them see reason. 

“He is one of us,” says Djura, even though the man may not have set foot in the village before. Meanwhile, young Jana (Jana Bjelica) takes the death threat seriously and goes about doing everything possible to save him, which essentially boils down to being constantly on the run, in search of him. Her run is the film’s leitmotif.

Where The Road Leads is like a cinematic haiku that might appear to be exploring a very particular and precise situation but engages with some weighty worldly wisdom. Ogjnanovic crafts the film inventively, like a mystery, the end coming as a snappy surprise. She takes us back and forth in time over two days while keeping the key moment of the killing and the finale in focus. In the process, she maps out the village in all its beauty—natural, rough and rugged not some extraordinarily breathtaking landscape. There’s a fable-like feel and gentle humour to the film.

Ogjnanovic makes us meet an array of characters united in their idiosyncrasies, be it the child Mirkao (Demijan Kostic) looking up at the sky for a plane to fly over his head or his grandmother who is concerned about the damage that looking up at the sun might cause his eyes. There is a wondrous sense of community brought alive by a terrific ensemble.

At a broader level the film parallels the theme of the rural-urban divide, the clash between two disparate worlds. There is the pragmatism of the stranger who abandoned the roots and refuses to see anything idyllic or pastoral in the rustic reality. “It’s not a piece of heaven”, he says. 

According to him, with the arrival of a highway, the villagers should invest in small businesses to make money to pump back into the growth of the place. On the other hand, “we stayed on to take care of the place”, is the moral upper hand of the residents, particularly his resentful cousin Voja (Vujadin Milosevic). The villagers don’t care for the stranger’s newfangled ideas and suggestions and are resistant to change. It becomes a battleground between two opposing viewpoints and ways of life.

The stranger is the corrupting force, like the Biblical snake, bringing out latent resentment among villagers and jealousy between Jana and her friend, since both are competing for the affection of this same man. However, Ogjnanovic is firmly in control of the drama, keeping the conflicts low-key and simmering rather than strident.

Contradictions are the key to the film. The stranger may have stirred the proverbial pot but is also the road to escape from the dreary place, stifling people and claustrophobic relationships that chain Jana. She has her bag packed, and ready to go. The question is, will the road lead her to her deserved destiny?

In this weekly column, the writer explores the non-Indian films that are making the right noises across the globe. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp

Nina Ogjnanovic’s Where The Road Leads is an enchanting whimsy of a film. A short and sweet reverie that beguiles and befuddles with many abstractions even while dwelling on some basic temporal truths. Where The Road Leads is all about how the unexpected arrival of a stranger (Zlatan Vidovic) in a remote Serbian village changes the daily drift and rhythm of the place and its people.

The residents are divided over him. Is he one of the workers at the highway construction site? The revelation of his identity and connection with the place leads to a community feast in which misunderstandings and prejudices lead to hostilities with two drunk no-gooders—Petar (Ninoslav Culum) and Pavre (Vladimir Maksimovic)—taking a vow to kill “the new guy”. It’s for the head of the village, Mr Djura (Igor Filipovic), who largely appears under the barber’s razor, perennially getting shaved in the film, to make them see reason. 

“He is one of us,” says Djura, even though the man may not have set foot in the village before. Meanwhile, young Jana (Jana Bjelica) takes the death threat seriously and goes about doing everything possible to save him, which essentially boils down to being constantly on the run, in search of him. Her run is the film’s leitmotif.googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-8052921-2’); });

Where The Road Leads is like a cinematic haiku that might appear to be exploring a very particular and precise situation but engages with some weighty worldly wisdom. Ogjnanovic crafts the film inventively, like a mystery, the end coming as a snappy surprise. She takes us back and forth in time over two days while keeping the key moment of the killing and the finale in focus. In the process, she maps out the village in all its beauty—natural, rough and rugged not some extraordinarily breathtaking landscape. There’s a fable-like feel and gentle humour to the film.

Ogjnanovic makes us meet an array of characters united in their idiosyncrasies, be it the child Mirkao (Demijan Kostic) looking up at the sky for a plane to fly over his head or his grandmother who is concerned about the damage that looking up at the sun might cause his eyes. There is a wondrous sense of community brought alive by a terrific ensemble.

At a broader level the film parallels the theme of the rural-urban divide, the clash between two disparate worlds. There is the pragmatism of the stranger who abandoned the roots and refuses to see anything idyllic or pastoral in the rustic reality. “It’s not a piece of heaven”, he says. 

According to him, with the arrival of a highway, the villagers should invest in small businesses to make money to pump back into the growth of the place. On the other hand, “we stayed on to take care of the place”, is the moral upper hand of the residents, particularly his resentful cousin Voja (Vujadin Milosevic). The villagers don’t care for the stranger’s newfangled ideas and suggestions and are resistant to change. It becomes a battleground between two opposing viewpoints and ways of life.

The stranger is the corrupting force, like the Biblical snake, bringing out latent resentment among villagers and jealousy between Jana and her friend, since both are competing for the affection of this same man. However, Ogjnanovic is firmly in control of the drama, keeping the conflicts low-key and simmering rather than strident.

Contradictions are the key to the film. The stranger may have stirred the proverbial pot but is also the road to escape from the dreary place, stifling people and claustrophobic relationships that chain Jana. She has her bag packed, and ready to go. The question is, will the road lead her to her deserved destiny?

In this weekly column, the writer explores the non-Indian films that are making the right noises across the globe. Follow The New Indian Express channel on WhatsApp