Yugoslav Black Wave and Critical Discourse: The Review of the Past, Criticism of Today and The Anticipation of Crisis

Abstract

Considering the so-called black wave as a group of original achievements of the Yugoslav cinema, I set aside its dominant themes. As most important I have marked: 1. The post-war chaos and the inversion of values; 2. The forms of alienation In socialist society; 3. The sexual revolution; 4. Assumptions about the possibility of the dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; 5. The representations of marginalized groups. These topics are mentioned as forms of critique of real socialism at the time that reveals dissatisfaction with inconsistent application of Marxist thought in social practice. Today, when one can notice exoticism of the past and as its consequence the so called yugonostalgia the post-Yugoslav societies, these films can serve as a basis for questioning the value system of the Yugoslav socialist society to reveal the cracks in its idealized picture. Although the film, as a cultural product remains on the border between fantasy and the document, it reflects social relations. Like other forms of art film can be read like a text, and its semantics reveal consistency of defects, latent and manifest social criticism.