A first person film essay or a diary film is, because of its very form, an easily accessible and popular way to make a film. On the one hand, in case of such work the director becomes the curator of his or her own life and the process of making it generally functions as an effective method of self-interpretation. On the other hand, it is favored for the enormous liberty it gives for the availability of the actor and the unnecessity of budget as well as team which results in a great deal of creative freedom.
The title of the movie refers to the director’s ambition, which is to find the way of a perfect happily ever after. One might interpret the film as a particular road movie since the main character visits all her ex-boyfriends to explore her bad habits and faults in order to avoid future breakups and heartbreaks. While at first glance the story might seem light and humorous, which it actually is, the film also outlines a complex personality. By deepening characters and situations, director Tatjana Božić presents a particularly personal journey. Moreover, her intimate relation to all the other characters makes them extremely exciting despite the proportionally little on-screen time they get.
Brief review
As mentioned above, the story is based on Tatjana’s road visiting locations and actors of her past relationships. The most important of her beloved ones is the Russian Pavel. He appears to be the most formative relationship of Tatjana’s youth and they managed to keep each other as close as possible. The further lovers roughly have the same significance in the buildup of the story, the presentation of their personality is tightly attached to the nation where they come from. For instance Frank is a true German soul, carrying a touch of weltschmerz in himself, an intellectual role model for Tatjana, or Jacoba civil servant, is known for his English reliability. Last but not least we have Rogier, the current lover, for whom Tatjana moves to the Netherlands and who soon becomes the father of her child.
The structure of the film is based on the dialogues between Tatjana and her ex-boyfriends, Rogier, and in some cases between Tatjana and other women. All the other female characters are closely connected to Tatjana’s past lovers, therefore they might look periphrastic tools ofthe main character’s drama. In spite of this, thanks to the directors empathetic position, these women gain individual importance in the story. Other sequences only show the face of female characters – relatives, friends or even strangers to Tatjana.
Apart from this, Tatjana introduces herself through three different sequences. Firstly, the narration of some archive footage from her childhood gives basic information about her early years and her mother, who is unfortunately dead by the time of shooting and has a crucial part in the way Tatjana creates her identity. Secondly, films, icons and news also had a great impact on her personality in terms of desires and models. Finally, as a director, Božić exposes her family and surroundings in scenes showing cultural habits and dynamics of these various communities.
Travelling as a metaphor
Tourists and vagabonds
The road Tatjana takes from Croatia through Russia to the Netherlands can be understood as a metaphor for self-identification. Taken this perspective, I intend to highlight two possible contexts of the process of her self-identification.
Firstly, the cultural aspect is essential, as most of the characters are embedded in a distinguished sociocultural context. Tatjana’s journey begins in Croatia and ends in one of the symbolic Western European democracies, the Netherlands. Above all, the matter is Tatjana’s cultural identification so the stages of her journey needs to be studied thoroughly making use of two terms from Zygmunt Bauman. These are used to express the difference between those who can take advantage of postmodern society, and who just manage to survive it.
The basis of differentiation might be the influence of the division of Europe during the Cold War, since it results in an undoubtable social, cultural and financial handicap for the post-socialist countries. Those who are from Western countries are generally known for being open-minded, flexible and independent. „The tourists embark on their travels by choice – or so, at least, they think. They set off because they find home boring or not attractive enough, too familiar and holding too few surprises; or because they hope to find elsewhere more exciting adventure and deeper sensations than the homely routine is ever likely do deliver. (…) Mobility is the name of the game: one must be able to move when the needs push or the dreams call. This ability the tourists call freedom, autonomy or independence.” [1]
The descendants of the socialist countries are in lack of these qualities. „(…) if the tourist move because they find the world irresistibly attractive, the vagabonds move because they find the world unbearably inhospitable. (…) Freedom, autonomy, independence – if they appear in their vocabulary at all – come invariably in the future tense. For them, to be free means not to have to wander around.” [2]
While from different perspectives both of these interpretations can match Tatjana’s personality, she is on her way of becoming a tourist from a vagabond. Although she is desperately seeking her calmness on the side of a man as a vagabond is seeking to find a final place to settle, she was also able to adapt the ideas of autonomy and independence. At this point it is crucial to highlight that this adaptation is not a kind of subordination, as the term itself suggests. Similarly to the audience, the characters in the movie also tend to forget that Tatjana has the potential to decide what to adapt to – as everybody has to make this decision sooner or later – this way she becomes able to redefine herself over and over again.
Travelling as a gesture of differentiation
The strong distinguishing of nations initiates the necessity of defining the two contrasted cultures. An obvious example might be found around the three quarters of the film, when Božić displays two cultural events after each other so all the evident differences are clearly visible. Additionally, those are highlighted by both visual and auditive gestures, picturing the Dutch family event carefully arranged and strictly planned with wider framing and visually separating Božić from the family, while the Croatian one seems simply wild and free in closer pictures and dominant songs, moreover, Božić personally addresses people in smaller interviews.
Clarifying the viewpoint of the director raises the question of the position taken by her in this complex situation. In the scene mentioned above she declares her belonging to her Croatian family, yet it must be remembered that all her actions are in order to leave this culture behind. In conclusion, it gives the impression that in a power relation she locates her original socio-cultural surroundings below the one chosen by her, bringing up the question of self-colonizing.
The term was introduced by Alexander Kiossev in an essay dedicated to the term itself, called The Self-Colonizing Metaphor: „The concept of self-colonizing can be used for cultures having succumbed to the cultural power of Europe and the west without having been invaded and turned into colonies in actual fact. Historical circumstances transformed them into an extracolonial »periphery«, lateral viewers who have not been directly affected either by important colonial conflicts or by the techniques of colonial rule. The same circumstances however put them in a situation where they had to recognize self-evidently foreign cultural supremacy and voluntarily absorb the basic values and categories of colonial Europe. The result might be named »hegemony without domination«.”[3]
While this term might sound matching to the film, it is also considerable that the mentioned scene criticises Dutch family life too. There appears the inner will to form her own circumstances of living by pairing the two different cultures. Proving that, from the beginning of the film the narration often refers to Tatjana’s adaptation to the experienced cultures and this comes into focus most vividly when after the breakup with Rogier she decides to stay in the country co-parenting their son. This family concept is undoubtedly way far from the traditional family she had imagined, so accepting it demonstrates a flexible and individual character.
Another valid objection to the term of self-colonizing could be the way Božić approaches her characters, creating diverse and singular portraits of them. Self-colonization would inevitably mean that the people and their surroundings introduced in the story are reduced to simple patterns. In this particular case a pageant would be portrayed as someone from a catalogue, representing certain habits and attributes, which might result in the distanciation of the viewer from the character. Given the detailed and empathetic presentation of people, their cultural determination is displayed through Tatjana’s intimate perspective and the distanciation doesn’t take place. Furthermore, the self-reflective and eclectic visual style also adds to overcome this potential danger.
Notwithstanding it is reasonable to disavow the term of self-colonizing, the whole concept recalls a scene which has nothing to do with cultures, out and away it is connected with self-subordination. Rogier himself connects this cultural and personal attachment when accuses Tatjana of having a ‘Balcan mentality’ and Frank also notices that she tends to victimize herself. In addition to that, Božić in the narration poses the question: ‘Who should I be to make sure that you love me?’
Travelling as a woman
As the question above suggests, it is also essential to reflect upon this journey as the road of a female. Femininity and roles based on gender are in the focus of the story, even more so as the whole film is framed by the question of motherhood. At the beginning of the film we promptly learn that one of the reasons of Tatjana’s first and maybe most painful breakup was an abortion unwanted by his at-the-time boyfriend, Pavel. After that, Pavel marries another woman with the same name, Tatjana, and almost immediately becomes a father. Tatjana gently indicates that this girl would have been her daughter.
This relationship is regarded as the zero point of her journey and the other one with Rogier seems to be some kind of end she had wished for. A present situation contrasts the trauma of the past. Finally, she has the chance to prove that she could become a perfect lover and mother. Whenas all these adventures happen to her, the mother’s character is constantly floating above the story, indicating that she defined Tatjana’s personality and left an irreversible mark on her. For Tatjana’s mother being an independent woman was an essential desire and an inaccessible dream, and this dichotomy made a sensible sign on Tatjana, as her mother appears to be an unquestionable icon in her life.
She at once wants the freedom of a traveller and the safety provided by depending on others which is a phenomenon that presents this inherited duality the most evident way. Her journey from Croatia as an international film school student gives her enormous freedom but she is not able to maintain this privilege as a girlfriend. She is travelling independently to find someone to rely on, and this is the tense paradox of Tatjana’s life. She wishes to be self-dependent meanwhile an inner compulsion works under the surface and pulls her back from a thorough realization of this procedure.
The masculinity of travelling and the femininity of being on one’s side are continuously opposing each other, and these roles introduce the theory of wandering as a considerable context of the interpretation. The flâneur, a man per se, is able to occupy the city and even to define and control his urban environment. What enables his to do this relies on social status, part of which is gender itself. Since the women were limited to households and they were excluded from public presence, based on concepts like ‘a woman walking alone after dark invites trouble’, only men had the chance to explore their surroundings. Woman as a flaneuse only had shopping malls as a limited public place to occupy, or they could choose to be prostitutes to have an excuse for wandering. The situation of course, started to gradually change from the 18th century with some basic social changes generated by feminist movements, but the contrasting reception of a wandering man and a woman still makes a mark.
Adapting the theory of the flaneuse it is rather hard to decide, whether she can be identified as such or not. While it is quite arguable that her goal is to find somebody to depend on, after a little bit more serious analysis the situation proves to be something else. Primarily, Božić has the camera in her hands, she is the director of the film so she has the potential to picture people and give her personal viewpoint. As the theory of the flaneuse is often put on the basis of the controlling power of the gaze, the Tatjana can be described as such. In addition to that, we must be suspicious – as the film itself provokes us to be – with the way she presents herself in several relationships, as she lets men define her as a needy and weepy defenseless girl. In spite of all this situation, the film does not really put emphasis on travelling so it seems reasonable to let overshadow the term of the flaneur.
From this perspective the ending of the film needs to be strongly criticised. The opening question is formulated with the intention of getting to know the reasons why Tatjana was unable to maintain a long-term relationship, meanwhile offers to present the joys of filmmaking. Božić takes the challenge of telling her personal story and allows an insight to the process of her self-identification, relying on the people who has or had the closest possible relationship with her. In spite of this, the story ends up with an answer which turns out to be inadequate, as it tells the audience that the main problem was the relationship itself, which is rather pretentious. However, we the audience still have the possibility to give our own answers based on what we’ve learnt from the story. Appealing to the well-known idea of the controlling power of a relationship, the director seems to forget her romantic, dramatic, sometimes ironic and always sincere belief in love and settles for a simplified answer.
After the brief introduction of the possible contexts of interpretation I intend to highlight one of the main reasons of calling this film a lovable farce. In case of a film diary the main character has an essential role in creating the atmosphere of the movie and giving it an individual and unforgettable style. Tatjana Božić has such presence – she steps out as a strong and wise woman from the turn of the century, who has a wonderful accent, admirable humor and real theatrical talent. Either presenting herself weak, intolerable or hysterical, she always has some kind of reflection on her behaviour and as I see it, she does not accept the possible excuses given by her culture or by her gender. She is able to make the audience love her figure from the first minute of the film, as her interest in herself and in the people she loves is authentic enough to catch one’s attention.
[1] Baumant, Zygmund: Tourists and vagabonds: heroes and victims of postmodernity. Wien: Institut für Höhere Studien, 1996. pp. 11-12. https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/26687/ssoar-1996-baumann-tourists_and_vagabonds.pdf
[2] Baumant: Tourist and vagabonds. p. 14.
[3] Kiossev, Alexander: The Self-Colonizing Metaphor. http://monumenttotransformation.org/atlas-of-transformation/html/s/self-colonization/the-self-colonizing-metaphor-alexander-kiossev.html
Babos Anna 