FROM THE HISTORY OF CROATIAN CINEMA

Avengers in film of Zoran Tadić

Text covers one neglected component of Zoran Tadić’s motion pictures — intimate lives of his characters. It focuses on the characters of avengers present in Tadić’s films of revenge Convicted (1987), The Man Who Loved Funerals (1989), and the Eagle (1990), along with the film featuring an implicit motive of revenge A Dream of the Rump (1986). The author introduces the thesis that the true motive of revenge in these films is not to punish for crimes committed against the avengers and their siblings, nor to fight for justice, instead it is the avenger’s desire to transfer the guilt, that is to say, to transfer the responsibility for their life’s failures on the social criminals who hurt them and made their lives difficult using their position in society. The attempts of avengers to shift the guilt for their personal failures on others, and eventually by avenging themselves to restore peace and happiness in their lives, end in precisely the opposite — the punishment of the avengers for their deeds and their complete moral and existential downfall. However, in The Eagle, chronologically last in Tadić’s revenge cycle, the characters of avengers make a kind of penance in the last scene, thus expressing awareness of their own responsibility for their life’s mistakes. The acknowledgement is the first step toward redemption and enlightenment, by which the author of the text supports the claim that Tadić’s author world, despite common belief, is not reduced to pessimism and resignation.

Juraj Kukoč