HONEYMOONS
Directed by Goran Paskaljevic
Produced by Paskaljevic, Ilir Butka & Nikola Djivanovic
Written by Paskaljevic and Genc Permeti
Released by Nova Film International
Serbo-Croatian, Albanian & Italian with English subtitles
Serbia/Albania. 95 min. Not Rated
With Mirela Naska, Jozef Shiroka, Jelena Trkulja & Nebojsa Milovanovic
 

Honeymoons is a story of contrasts and parallels: Serbs versus Albanians, city dwellers versus peasants, Eastern versus Western Europe. The film delicately straddles romance and politics by skewering the ghosts of the Balkans through two young couples over the course of a few momentous days.

Though they never meet, the couples, one from a rural Albanian village, the other from Belgrade, become mired in similar circumstances on opposite sides of the tense Serbian-Albanian border. Maylinda (Mirela Naska) and Nik (Jozef Shiroka) make a rare trip into the capital city of Tirana for a family wedding, where Nik convinces her to shed their repressive village life and run away to the West. Maylinda, the somber and beautiful fiancé of his dead brother, accepts his plan and his affections, and the two sneak away for a boat to Italy—avoiding the wrath of Nik’s mother, who clings to the belief that her favorite son, who disappeared on his way to Italy years earlier, is still alive. Meanwhile, Vera (Jelena Trkulja) and Marko (Nebojsa Milovanovic) arrive at a wedding with slightly more settled plans—to leave for Vienna the next day, where Marko will audition for the Vienna Philharmonic and, with Vera, start a new life.

The wedding scenes are gaudy and boisterous, but unlike the joyful and slapstick spectacle in Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat (centered on a Gypsy rural wedding), there is a discernible sense of discomfort in these celebrations. The nouveau riche Albanian wedding takes place in a nightclub where little expense has been spared, much to Nik’s family’s embarrassment, while at the Serbian festivities, guns are fired into their air in celebration, conjuring images of the recent war that ripped though the region.

While the couples are tenderly portrayed, neither country is painted very favorably. It’s no wonder the younger generation wants to flee. But their paths to a new life are blocked by the bitter and closed-minded—Nik’s fervently traditional mother and Vera’s grudge-obsessed, stridently nationalistic father, hardened by years of conflict. If not venal, at best, they are a stagnant lot. A bus driver’s memorable announcement, “We will arrive on schedule with a half-hour delay,” perfectly encapsulating the director Goran Paskaljevic’s wry take on the bureaucratically challenged nations. Yana Litovsky
September 10, 2010