Saber and cutting

It is important that the students who organize today protests, beaten by police and look-alike hooligans, see and recognize the same strong sense of need to change and rebel in the series.

The series ended this weekend Saber on RTS. We waited too long for the broadcast of these eight episodes, because the original idea of ​​the author and production of This And That was to show the series on the anniversary of the murder of Zoran Djindjic, so that the last episode falls on March 12. Unfortunately, the series experienced European and world premieres and awards before we could see it in our country, paradoxically, on RTS 1 and on the streaming platform HBO Max.

It is as if the story about the murder of the prime minister and the police action "Sablja" had to metaphorically receive support from abroad in order for the public service to finally "take pity", swallow the dumpling and broadcast it.

The death of 15 people under a canopy in Novi Sad and the wave of citizens' dissatisfaction have probably drawn the attention of formal censorship or self-censorship enough, there is no choice in sight, and currently President Vučić is so angry with RTS that one series more or less will not drastically change things. We knew from the very beginning that the story of "Saber" practically means a more or less dramatized history of the darkest moment of our recent history, the subsequent metastasis of the defeated forces after October 5, and that such truth, no matter how artistically expressed, must be not a thorn but a saber in the eye current authorities.

The authors of the series, Goran Stanković and Vladimir Tagić, as a screenwriting and directing tandem, with the help of a team of collaborators, tried to distance themselves from the literal interpretation of the drama series by declaring at the beginning of each episode that they worked in accordance with historical facts and archival material, but that the characters are the product of fiction . The main character of the series is actually Zoran Đinđić, so the series could easily have been called "Zoran", but then they would only deal with the last chapters of his life and political activities. Zorana was very impressively played by Dragan Mićanović, conveying to the screen the most powerful thing in Đinđić's personality – incredible energy and desire to change things.

I also knew that watching this series would bring back memories of time, people and events, media, hopes and disappointments, so it is completely clear that anyone who has even participated in the attempts at change from the nineties to today, while watching the series, had their stomach tied in a knot. . Paradoxically, I remembered how we unsuccessfully tried to watch partisan films with my late grandmother Mara, a partisan widow from Grmeč, during the holidays. How foolish we were to force a woman who survived typhus during the battle of Kozara with her two children and lost her husband during the battle of the Neretva to watch someone's vision or propaganda of what she felt on her own skin. She never even wanted to ask for a veteran's pension, she never remarried, but she didn't want to watch war movies. That's why I decided to watch "Saber" with the children.

The media reacted differently to the series, but one could notice a kind of government directive to relativize the story as much as possible. It was discussed which of the actors resembled the real characters, what kind of guys the younger actors were, and various experts and conspiracy theorists revived the "third bullet" of the patriot from the JSO or the foreign service that ordered the murder. Branislav Lečić, for example, refused to extradite Milosevic to The Hague in front of the cameras in the presence of Vojislav Šešelj.

Although political opponents of Zoran Đinđić are in power in Serbia today, their appearance was reduced to Šešelj, the Zemun clan and its members, as well as Kostunica's team from the DSS, which is still missing today. The story is told through three fictitious characters, a journalist from a fictional TV station, a young criminal who thrives in mafia waters, and a police inspector who is up to his throat in the shit of "The Service" or "The Service".

That's why the series Saber could actually be called "Service" because she survived, first killing Zoran, then those who killed him, proving that she is the basic and unchanging pivot of every government to this day. "Saber", like October 5, was a very short period when the ground shook a little under the feet of that center of power, when you had to change your skin like "snake skin" in order to survive. Then the evidence was burned, new pacts were made, and we still live this new post Đinđić's reality today.

That's why it doesn't matter what feeling I have when I recognize people and events, recordings and testimonies, since the time of B92, while Legija is asking for parole because he served 20 years.

It is important that the students who organize protests today, who are beaten by the police and hooligans who look alike, see and recognize in the series the same strong sense of the need to change something and to rebel. Believe me, they have it all figured out, this is a document of the times they understand, just like the series The morning will change everything, made by the same author team. Someone put together a mosaic and story cubes for them that I don't want to spoil for future viewers. There are many missing characters, from Toma Nikolić, through Vučić, Dejan Mihajlov, but also Svetlana Ražnatović, who was also arrested during "Sablja".

This version of the story about Zoran Djindjic and his murder will be seen by viewers in 15 countries around the world where it will be shown, for now. For me, it is important that the story is told and produced in a way that keeps up with series from the world production.

At the end of the series, in which, in addition to documentary material, the technique of dramatization was used according to the original template, a mini collage of Zoran's speeches was played, ending with the one from Valjevo. That voice remained resonating, sick to our stomachs from the amount of history we swallowed like frogs from one of his anecdotes. Already on Monday, in the Serbian Parliament, the opposition interrupted the session, and after everything they played recordings of Zoran Đinđić's speech in an empty hall.

The scar from "Sablja" is just an unpleasant reminder, a pain before the change of time and government, a reminder that we have not removed the metastases and that we are increasingly sick, like a tattoo with the name of a former love that someone wants to hide.