Starring: Rade Marković, Gordana Miletić, Mata Milošević, Stole Arandjelović, Pavle Vujisić.
On the surface, Zenica is a rather dogmatic work of socialist realism. Set amidst the rapid expansion of the steelworks in the titular city in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the area’s extreme modernisation and urbanisation after the destruction of WWII, we follow factory engineer Bora (Rade Marković) who has just moved to the city from Belgrade alongside his wife Divna (Gordana Miletić) to oversee the factory’s expansion. From here, a seemingly simple dichotomy emerges: the liberal socialist urbanites are to help educate, civilise and modernise the local peasant population – many of them Muslim Bosniaks – even as cracks appear in the couple’s relationship.
But underneath that simplistic surface lies a melodrama of surprising grace. An early sequence sees Divna arriving into Zenica. She first witnesses the furious building of apartment blocks before the camera cuts to a minaret and cobblestone streets: the old Ottoman Bosnia and the new socialist Bosnia co-exist here in far more disruptive and fragmented ways than the dichotomies of socialist realism allow for. The couple see themselves as cultured Belgraders, and yet struggle to adapt to Zenica or to local custom, arriving as fish out of water. Hiding beneath the surface is a film about a cracked sense of regional and national identity, producing a surprisingly vibrant work.
