What was euphemistically called “unpleasantness” in 1990s (ex) Yugoslavia had many causes, but some of the enthusiastic catalysts were prominent literary figures, some of which would later become even more direct participants of those events. One of those was Jovan Radulović who, for a short time, served as foreign minister in Republic of Serbian Krajina, self-proclaimed separatist entity in ethnic Serb areas of today’s Croatia. In 1982, a decade earlier, he earned the reputation of Serb nationalist with Golubnjača, his play dealing with WW2 atrocities committed on ethnic Serbs by their ethnic Croat neighbours, which was suppressed by Communist Yugoslav authorities over being incompatible with official “Brotherhood and Unity” policy. In 1986 covered the same subject in Maternal Half-Brothers (“Braća po materi”), novel which would, thanks to Serb nationalism becoming increasingly more acceptable in Serbia, receive much better treatment and even become basis for feature film directed by Zdravko Šotra two years later.
The plot begins in late 1970s Belgrade when Veselin Cvjetković (played by Slavko Štimac) gets in fight during a prom night gets into a fight and kills another young man. Later, while serving prison sentence, he begins receiving letters from his older half-brother Braco Gavran (played by Žarko Laušević) who is currently living in Austria. Through those letters Veselin learns about his family’s complicated history that began in 1930s in hinterland of Dalmatia at the foothills of Mt. Dinara where their mother Vranka (played by Mira Furlan) met her husband Antiša Gavran (played by Slobodan Ninković), ethnic Croat from village of Šmrekovo. Braco is product of this union, which ends during WW2 when Antiša dies as member of Ustaše, fascist militia set up by pro-Axis regime Independent State of Croatia. After the war Vranka maries Krstan Cvjetković (played by Dragomir Čumić), ethnic Serb from village of Kulina who has served among victorious Yugoslav Partisans. Unlike Veselin, who was born in second marriage, Braco was always under suspicion and looked upon because of his background, so he became resentful and in 1960s left Yugoslavia and joined militant Croatian separatists abroad. Although they are divided by ethnicity, ideology and different path that they have taken in life, two half-brothers gradually discover that they share more than a mother and that they are actually closer than they have thought.
Although Maternal Half-Brothers depicts troubled history of Serb-Croat relations from Serb perspective, film takes much more nuanced approach that the reputation of the novel’s author might suggest. Script, co-written by Šotra and Radulović, generally avoids black-and-white characterisation and even suggests that Croats were victims of history just as Serbs. This might be explained with the fact that Maternal Half-Brothers was made while Yugoslavia was still in one piece. This allowed Šotra to use both Croatian and Serbian cast, and the former included some names that would become famous in US television, like Mira Furlan of Babylon 5 fame and 16-year old Goran Višnjić, who had debut in the role of young Croat nationalist militant. Film was made on the original locations that would only few years later become a battlefield and contains few scenes, that in light of events before and after production, look surreal, like ethnic Croats during 1971 Croatian Spring movement dancing to the tune of Vice Vukov’s song “Tvoja zemlja”.
However, it is very likely that only those viewers who are slightly familiar what went on in Yugoslavia before its dissolution might catch those interesting details. And even they would probably be confused at some times rushed plot that hardly makes any sense, which was something that often happened with 1980s Yugoslav films, too many times made of abridged television miniseries. But the biggest flaw of the film is its attempt to make some sort of closure and happy end in the scene when two half-brothers finally reunite, suggesting that there are more things that they bring them together than then they set them apart. History has played much differently and in the worst possible way, making this film rather unpleasant experience, at least to those who had been witness to it, directly or indirectly.
RATING: 3/10 (+)
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I cried in January 2021 and November 2023 when Mira and Žarko left us.
They were great in this movie...