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{"id":11067,"date":"2023-06-05T09:29:06","date_gmt":"2023-06-05T09:29:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lossi36.com\/?p=11067"},"modified":"2023-09-08T15:20:00","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T15:20:00","slug":"emigration-nostalgia-and-a-croatian-groundhog-day-the-uncle-at-the-goeast-festival-of-central-and-eastern-european-film","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lossi36.com\/2023\/06\/05\/emigration-nostalgia-and-a-croatian-groundhog-day-the-uncle-at-the-goeast-festival-of-central-and-eastern-european-film\/","title":{"rendered":"Emigration, nostalgia, and a Croatian groundhog day: \u201cThe Uncle\u201d at the goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film"},"content":{"rendered":"
On the surface, <\/span>The Uncle<\/span><\/i> reads like your standard Christmas film. A family of three \u2014 mother, father, and son \u2014 are preparing dinner and decorating the house for the holiday. On the way is an uncle, travelling all the way from Germany for the occasion and bringing with him gifts from the West. Often, the holiday season brings out stress among family members; throw in a relative from abroad and voila, you have the perfect recipe for a tension-ridden chamber thriller. However, for their first feature film, Croatian filmmakers Andrija Marde\u0161i\u0107 and David Kapac decided to go one step further.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Throughout the first 20 minutes of the film, subtle anachronisms hint that things are not all as they seem. For one, the film\u2019s colour palette is made up of rich, warm tones, bringing to mind the aura of late summer, not the more chilly blues one would expect from a classic Croatian winter. Another indication is the distinctly raw turkey, which the uncle praises as perfectly cooked before cutting and serving it to the rest of the family. Then, there is the clearly adult son who takes on a childish persona whenever the uncle is around, eating gummy candies by the handful and racing around the house with his toy gun.<\/span><\/p>\n Soon enough, it is revealed \u201cChristmas\u201d is an everyday occasion, whereby the uncle is the writer and director of all that occurs. Day after day, the family repeats the celebration in a constant attempt to recreate the \u201cperfect\u201d Christmas \u2014\u00a0if not, their daughter will \u201cnever return from Germany,\u201d as the uncle puts it. It is never made clear how many times the family has lived like this, but it is evident that by the time of the film\u2019s setting, things are hitting their breaking point. What emerges is a classic slow-burn film full of suspense, told in a style reminiscent of Yorgos Lanthimos.<\/span><\/p>\n Though the focus of the film is on the elements of physical and psychological abuses that occur within the family unit, Marde\u0161i\u0107 and Kapac also bring in Yugoslav nostalgia by having the uncle set his scene in the late-1980s to early-1990s. Indeed, one way to see the film is as a hazy analysis of Yugoslav emigration to West Germany, and the facets of Croatian nationalism that emerged during this time. For example, throughout the film, the uncle forces various family members to sing the patriotic song \u201c<\/span>Vila Velebita<\/b><\/a>\u201d (Eng: \u201cFairy of Velebit\u201d). It is significant that these nationalist feelings are harboured by an emigre\u00e9, who at the same time is trying to recreate his own socialist youth. In this way, the character of the uncle illustrates the complexities of identity in the region, and how one\u2019s childhood experiences shape the rest of our lives, even if we may have escaped the original situation.<\/span><\/p>\n Marde\u0161i\u0107 and Kapac make good use of their cast, which features Goran Bogdan as the father; Ivana Ro\u0161\u010di\u0107 as the mother; Roko Sikavica as the son; and the excellent Predrag Miki Manojlovi\u0107 as the titular uncle. The film won a number of awards in the Balkan festival circuit, as well as <\/span>Special Jury Mention<\/b><\/a> at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival \u2013 Proxima Competition. As a debut feature, <\/span>The Uncle<\/span><\/i> succeeds as both a fun thriller, as well as a deeper analysis of family dynamics.<\/span><\/p>\n Xandie (Alexandra) Kuenning reviews “The Uncle,” a tense thriller examining family dynamics and Yugoslav nostalgia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":11068,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_oct_exclude_from_cache":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[692,2016,1818],"tags":[1963,848,1975,849],"coauthors":[2003],"class_list":["post-11067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","category-review-focus","category-southeastern-europe","tag-croatia","tag-film-review","tag-goeast","tag-yugoslavia"],"yoast_head":"\nFeature Image:\u00a0The Uncle<\/em><\/strong><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"