ANTE BABAJA (1927-2010) (1)

Symbolism of sound in Ante Babaja’s feature-length films

Music and noise in Babaja’s feature-length films are definitely an important a component of his poetics – from populism to elitism, from historicity to modernity. However, while we can say that King's New Clothes (Carevo novo ruho, 1961)and The Birch Tree (Breza, 1967)make use of music in an innovative fashion, in his later feature-length films Babaja uses the music primarily as the so-called muzak, neutral and passive music, adapted to the basic characteristic of the film. In the film Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh (Mirisi, zlato i tamjan, 1971) a symbolic value is attached to sounds and in The Lost Home Country (Izgubljeni zavičaj, 1980) the passivity of the protagonist is also depicted by means of sounds. Although unobtrusive, music, speech and noise can all be intertwined in a modernist fashion, in such a manner so as to erase the differences between these categories.

Irena Paulus