FROM THE HISTORY OF CROATIAN CINEMA

Use of Fiction Film Techniques in Ante Babaja’s Documentary Jedan dan u Rijeci

Ante Babaja’s Jedan dan u Rijeci (1954) is an indoctrinated and appropriated film which has fully achieved its goal: to depict the specificities of Rijeka, its people and lifestyle in celebration of the socialist movement and Rijeka’s joining the mother country. In spite of this fact, Babaja’s documentary seems like a fluttery unassuming play, rich in humour and very similar to the causerie. The authors achieved this by the use of feature film, mostly narrative, techniques, such as: subjective narrator, acting, and feature film editing and shooting techniques (master plus inserts, shot reverse shot, narrative scene framing, author’s takes, figures of style, action condensing, film within the film). The text describes the use of the mentioned techniques in detail. There are also concrete examples from the film that explain how these techniques successfully managed to »mask« the educational and ideological parts of the film.

Juraj Kukoč