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MIRAGE
Directed by: Svetozar Ristovski.
Written by: Grace Lea Troje & Svetozar Ristovski.
Produced by: Svetozar Ristovski.
Director of Photography: Vladimir Samoilovski.
Edited by: Atanas Georgiev.
Music by: Klaus Hundsbichler.
Released by: Picture This!.
Language: Macedonian/Albanian with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Republic of Macedonia. 107 min. Not Rated.
With: Marko Kovacevic, Mustafa Nadarevic, Vlado Jovanoski, Nikola Djuricko, Dejan Acimovic, Elena Mosevska, Slavica Manaskova & Nikola Hejko.

In a bildungsroman, a story of childhood swelling into maturity, the general rule is that they end well. But a kunstleroman, that of an artist’s maturation, typically goes as far as possible in the opposite direction. Both generally end with characters learning to accept their society, but the artist’s understanding seldom fails to be a pitilessly bleak outlook. Twelve-year-old Marko (Marko Kovacevic) reaches that stage of disappointment and malcontent in just about a month. (Don’t we all?)

It seems like writer/director Svetozar Ristovski wanted to make a critical film about the lasting cultural impact of Yugoslavian fragmentation in Macedonia, where Mirage is set. But there’s something universal about a boy coming to terms with his socioeconomic reality, as extreme as Marko’s may be. As a way out of his present miseries, Marko begins to believe his budding creative spirit can help him escape his self-destructive family (a drunken father, a despondent mother, and an abusive sister) by taking him to Paris for a poetry competition. But disappointment after disappointment teaches him otherwise – and being known to all the school’s gun-toting adolescents as “the poet” certainly doesn’t help. Shadowed by his growing awareness of the surrounding corruption and hypocrisy, Marko realizes that being told that his success as a student and patriotic poet will take him far is as comforting a pipedream as his father’s nightly gambling habits.

Like Tsotsi, the best foreign language film at this year’s Oscars, Mirage deals with violent youth in an impoverished country, but avoids cinematic clichés as Marko learns to separate reality from outmoded aphoristic values. A highly original and insightful film, Ristovski casts a harsh, complicated glance at his beautifully drawn characters and unvarnished cinematography. Its over-the-top abrasive ending aside, this is a noble movie that is as much an expression of disappointment as it is a latent hope for change. Zachary Jones
March 17, 2006