Golemata voda (eng subs) I2004] Ivo Trajkov

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The Great Water (2004)

Golemata voda (original title)


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0365285/

Macedonian language with English subtitles

A well-known Macedonian politician, Lem Nikodinoski, remembers his childhood in an orphanage after World War II, where he has been send to be reeducated; his intellectual parents, "enemies of the Revolution," oppose the communist government in power. There, Lem (Saso Kekenovski) meets the charming and mysterious 13-year-old Isak (Maja Stankovska), and they become best friends.

The long history of ancient Macedon, since 1991 the Republic of Macedonia, is so unwieldy, ethnic conflict-driven and, except for Alexander the Great, generally unknown, that it can be symbolized by European Union refusal to recognize the nationΓΓé¼Γäós sovereignty due to protests that the very name belongs to Greece. A similar, and needless, complexity mars the structuring of Ivo TrajkovΓΓé¼Γäós fifth feature, The Great Water/Golemata voda, courageously filmed on the edge of 2002 civil war in Skopje and Bitola.

Based on a children's book written by Zivko Cingo in the 1970s, the movie is about the difficult transition in Macedonia after World War II. The film begins in the present as old Lem (Meto Jovanovski), Macedonian politician who is experiencing a heart attack and while he is being wheeled into a hospital and examined and wired, he has memory flashbacks to his childhood in 1945. He is brought to the 'orphanage' where orphans are children of the enemies of the new regime. There he learns how to adjust to the role of obedient brainwashing. He becomes mesmerized by a new kid, Isak, a beautiful and charismatic boy. The struggles quietly underplaying all of the camp surface activity are many: the dichotomy of a Communist ideology removing the Church from existence with a people dependent upon the spiritual values of religion, the Stalin/Tito issue, the adjustments to the policies of Communist regime in a country where fierce national pride had ruled, and the depersonalization of children into political pawns despite the need for role models and the luxury of growing up with friends and confidants.

Co-scripted by the director from Zivko CingoΓΓé¼Γäós novel of the early ΓΓé¼╦£70s, the story details the first, Stalinist years after World War II, during which later renegade Marshall TitoΓΓé¼Γäós NLF federal Yugoslav government toed the hard line from Moscow. Aside from Socialist economic plans, state policy included the rooting out of Orthodoxy, punishment of ΓΓé¼┼ôenemies of the revolutionΓΓé¼┬¥ dissenters, and harsh military-style brainwashing of children with the aim of transforming them into Pioneers. Singled out for the latter, in asylums that were in effect ideological labor camps, were the offspring of those deemed such internal ΓΓé¼┼ôenemies.ΓΓé¼┬¥

Its adults veteran actors, the film relies for its visceral impact on over two-hundred-fifty children, eight to fifteen, as parentless war casualties interned in a fortress-turned-factory-turned-orphanage fronting an immense lake glimpsed only in opening credits and an ironic ending. Within ΓΓé¼┼ôwalls one thousand steps high, two thousand steps wide,ΓΓé¼┬¥ the terrified speechless youngsters are abused, browbeaten and indoctrinated by various fanatics, sadists and out-and-out lunatics.

Distinguished, bearded politician Lem Nikodinoski (Meto Jovanovski) is rushed to the hospital with heart failure, and what follows is his life flashbacking in front of his unconscious eyes. In bluish tint, the elderly man frequently appears to voice (by Rade Serbedzija) accented comment and observe, unseen, his twelve-year-old self (Saso Kekenovski) in that sepia past and even physically passes the bejeweled silver grandmotherΓΓé¼Γäós Slavic cross that he will too conveniently re-find in a wood box in the overgrown abandoned institution yard.

Breathless and hunted by soldiers, young Lem is ΓΓé¼┼ôcaught [like] the rabbitΓΓé¼┬¥ and brought to the asylum run by stern Headmaster Comrade ΓΓé¼┼ôDaddyΓΓé¼┬¥ Ariton (Mitko Apostolovski) and Deputy Comrade Olivera (Verica Nedeska), a sultry enthusiast who worships the Stalin whose bust she is molding.

Medieval in construction and method, this self-contained school relies on punishment, boot-camp exercise and rote memorization. Religion is anathema, and what is ΓΓé¼┼ôholyΓΓé¼┬¥ is a pair of red shorts awarded by the Gymnastics Committee. In a disappointingly flat episode, the sports relic disappears and is recovered, although the non-Communist supernatural, or at least unexplained, crops up in AritonΓΓé¼Γäós rainstorm cigarettes, his wifeΓΓé¼Γäós (Nikolina Kujaca) invisible nocturnal wanderings, and the arrival of Isak Keyten (Maja Stankovska), a year LemΓΓé¼Γäós senior, angelic with a hint of the diabolic, awe-inspiring and unafraid. The new internee works miracles -- or Old NickΓΓé¼Γäós work -- with blood, candles and wire crosses, and Lem will extend himself to win the friendship of this boy who ΓΓé¼┼ôthey say is from the Devil, demon seed,ΓΓé¼┬¥ and whose surname means ΓΓé¼┼ôDevilΓΓé¼┬¥ in Turkish. Young beauty Lenche (Marina Cakalova) falls under his spell, too, but her end is wasted off-the-precincts, off-screen, and it will be OliveraΓΓé¼Γäós sexual advances to him that precipitate the crisis.

The character of Isak is ambiguous in motivation and destiny, but Lem will live with his own act for what seems the ΓΓé¼┼ôthousand years passed since then.ΓΓé¼┬¥ In his last two acts, with the boy Lem and with his wife, only the Headmaster unexpectedly comes off as nobly tragic. The rest -- the plight of children, excesses of dehumanizing fanaticism, line between Heaven and Hell, spirit and flesh, and loyalty to truth -- is confused by the mix of techniques and genres. Perhaps brief final scenes, with a television news crew on the lakeside and cleaning staff at the ICU, are meant to imply that all is mere vanity, anyway.