‘Cinema of normalization’: changes of stylistic model in post-Yugoslav cinema after the 1990s

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe topic of this article is the change of stylistic dominant in the national cinemas of post-Yugoslav countries after the year 2000 and the huge political changes in Croatia and Serbia. In all post-Yugoslav states this was a period of political, social and economic changes, which is usually named by a common denominator: ‘normalization’. The objects of my analysis are three films coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Croatia. All these films: Grbavica/Esma's Secret (Jasmila Žbanić), Apsolutnih 100/Absolute 100 (Srdan Golubović) and Armin (Ognjen Sviličić) share many stylistic and thematic similarities. All three films break, implicitly or explicitly, with the tradition of Yugoslav cinema of the 1990s and the notion of ‘Balkan cinema’, inherited by auteurs like Kusturica or Dragojević. Some of them even include a metafilmic critique of that model. These three films are examples of the broader stylistic shift, which is connected with political and social changes. Therefore, the new stylistic dominant could be named as ‘cinema of normalization’.