Ocean and palm tree

In the Sarajevo collection 1001 nights there is a short story about the boy Harun. That story is entitled "Close your eyes": "I drew close your eyes because a coffin with ghosts was opened in Sarajevo. Indiana Jones, when the coffin was opened, in the film squinted and the ghosts couldn't do anything to him. Nothing can happen to anyone in Sarajevo if he closes his eyes in time." The story was written during the siege of Sarajevo.

And so I close my eyes and see Ive Daneu's goal at Kalemegdan against "Partizan" when he scored in the last second and "Olimpija" won. And the "Partizan" audience, after a minute of silence, stood up and applauded. I close my eyes, a summer night on Kalemegdan, nineteen sixty-something. "Crvena zvezda" - "OKK Beograd". I'm counting the baskets of Radivoj Korac. From half distance, always on the board. And I count myself. Tomorrow in "Sport" I watch and think "Zlatna levica" thirty points, and that number 45. In the audience that night was Ivo Andrić in an elegant coat, big glasses and clear, strict eyes.

Summer night again, Zdravka Čelara Street, "OKK Belgrade" courtyard. Playing Korać, Gordic, Nikolić, Trajković... coach Bora Stanković, against "Zadar". Đerđa, Bruno Marcelić, Troskot, Stipčević... And the pale slender seventeen-year-old, tall as a pine tree, Krešimir Ćosić. And his semi-chorus through national team member Rajković. Krešimir Cosić, the future Jupiter of Yugoslav basketball. Hall "Pionir", final of the European Championship, Yugoslavia-USSR. Last ten seconds, score 82-80. Dragan Kićanović dribbles to the floor of the best defender Jedeško on the cap of the racket. And it hits. Four seconds left and a timeout. USSR coach Kondrashin looks at the scoreboard: 84-80. The dying look of a wounded tiger.

I close my eyes, sports hall. Dražen Dalipagić's first game in "Partizan", against Zagreb's "Lokomotiva". Cermak is looking for a return pass, and Dražen is in the corner, going for a jump shot. And the sound of the mesh. Dalipagić, the best scorer and the best player of the World Championship in Manila in 1978. After 40 years in Kumanovska Street, I say to Dražen-Praja: "You scored 15 points in the first game. - You were wrong, encyclopedia, I scored 17." Must note: Bogdan Tanjević told me in Trieste that after a USA-Yugoslavia training match, Michael Jordan asked where the miraculous number 15 was.

I close my eyes, and Manila again. Semi-final Yugoslavia-Brazil, result 87-87. At the free throw line, the most elegant Yugoslav player, Mirza Delibašić. Moka Slavnić approaches him and says: "In two hundred dollars, you will miss." And Mirza: "I raise to 500 that I will hit." Of course, it was 89-87. Delibašić, melancholy as enthusiasm and as lordship: "When a word leaves my tongue, / like a flame appears from my mouth. / I am in love, the stack is my song / A living wound of burning love."

Final of the European Championship in Belgium, maybe Brussels. Yugoslavia-Italy. At halftime, the Azzurri lead by 16 points. It was tied 10 seconds before the end of the game, at the timeout Aleksandar Nikolić "planned" an attack for Dragan Kićanović. Three Azura around the top scorer. And Slavnić gets the ball and coolly scores in Mangup style for the win. These aces were led by the great Aleksandar Nikolić, the best coach in the history of Yugoslav basketball, and Ranko Žeravica.

And that's how we come to embrace Jura Pavlović's film Lost Dream Team. Because beauty is a tradition that I keep. Jure Pavlović's film is a small masterpiece. There is a large shot like in John Ford's, and the silence is like in Ingmar Bergman's films. And I see how in this film a pure tear becomes a source of sound.

The team is a community, but in this film each player speaks for himself. Every member of the Yugoslavian team was a master in the one-on-one game. In such a one-on-one game, the partisans broke through the hoop on Sutjeska. A heroic feat. Play and dignity conquer all. Who in this universe can judge whether warlike, bloodthirsty conflicts are more important for history than the dribbling and passing of Kukoč, the counter-play of Paspalj, the lucid play from the post of Divac, the jump and block of Radja, the defense and review of the game of Zdovac, the imagination and optimism of Đordjević, the reliable shot from half distance by Perasović, the rationality and three-pointer of Sretenović, the constancy of Jovanović, the audacity and good defense and the three-pointer of the young Danilović. And the federal captain Dušan Ivković as a model of strategy of charisma and mangupluk.

The rest of those masterful moves from Rome in 1991 are written between the bosom of the earth and the firmament. Justice and shame float through this film. Those Promethean principles, or the power that hurts, the power that heals. Masterful directorial reading of the player's face map. And masterfully edited silence. Because silence is best heard. Silence as music and as a commentary on crime and destruction. And silence as a game commentary. As a documentary, war pieces and shots from the arena in Rome. This contributes to the special impression of the rhythm of this movie story.

The field in the eternal city was for the young players both the ocean and the palm. The best dribble, the dog is sincerity as sincerity of soul and fingers. Sincerity of heart and precision of hand. Geometry of the yard and space.

This movie evokes emotion. From tragedy, resignation, to a smile. Friendship surpasses everything and that is why Yugoslavia triumphed in the semi-finals and the final when the war in Yugoslavia had already started to rage. It was not easy to forget the chest of poison and hatred, threats. But they managed it through conspiracy, friendship and mastery.

In the film, there is a precise geometry of the Yugoslav space and the fire of the diamond of the game. The game of voluntary exiles in Rome resembled the division of infinity with the smallest distance. Only the sound of the ball and the silence of the net can be heard.

A movie like this doesn't make me lose my memory and makes my head melancholic and wonderfully crazy. The game of the Yugoslav national team in Rome resembled syncopated jazz. Improvisation as a discipline. Discipline as improvisation. The open veins of player biographies rush into our lives, into my life as a gift and as a debt. Those sorcerers had an arrow in the throat and in the heart. They overcame that pain with the nobility of the game. It's like they're playing in their own street. That triumph remains absolute, like Michelangelo's drawing in the blue sky.

The masterfully depicted portraits of the players and Dusan Ivković are reminiscent of Rembrandt's self-portraits. Deep eyes reflect the Yugoslav universe of those tragic nineties, until today. The playground in Rome was their homeland, their regained heritage. Roman voluntary exiles followed the tune of their blood and the rhythm given to them by Danea, Korać, Đerđa, Gordić, Basin, Tvrdić, Cermak, Ćosić, Dalipagić, Simonović, Kićanović, Slavnić, Plećaš, Žorka, Jelovac, Jerkov, Vilfan, Dražen Petrović. It is a recognizable Yugoslav school. Its best offspring are Dončić, Jokić, the two Bogdanovićs, Šarić, Nurkić, Vučević.

This Roman team turned the shattered mirror of Yugoslavia into Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

This film by Jure Pavlović brings me to a silence that touches me to the core, to the point of moaning. Yugoslavia is always at the beginning. And it will appear until the end as a horizon, as curiosity, as friendship, as love, as the Mediterranean. Yugoslavia never surrenders. Because everything is if you love. The best testimony of these words is the excellent film by Jure Pavlović. And a partisan salute and DEATH TO FASCISM.