What did Dragan Bjelogrlić become? Both actor and director and producer and screenwriter... Enumerating the awards he received for his professional work would take up a huge space. However, he was chosen "Vremena" personality of the year for something else. And that is social engagement - as the initiator of ProGlas, Bjelogrlić made an immeasurable contribution to the awakening of democratic and moral values, and the hope that it is possible to establish a normal and humane society in Serbia with the rule of law and government control. How successful was he in that? As he himself says, it is too early to answer this question. What he certainly succeeded in is a demonstration of civic courage and awareness through a personal example. And since this has a special significance due to his professional career, the interview starts from the beginning.
photo: marija janković...
"All my memories of my childhood evoke some warm and gentle emotions, which probably means that my childhood was carefree, for which I am grateful to my parents," Dragan Bjelogrlić tells "Vreme". "I remember the big family gatherings in Bjelogrlić for May 1st and November 29th organized by my father, as well as my mother's discreet celebrations of Christmas, Easter and Saint Nicholas. I remember the arrival of relatives from Herzegovina, who on their way to "conquer Belgrade" would sleep with us until they found their way. They would come with a bottle of brandy and a dog pistol. Afterwards, my mother would put the gun away so that my brother and I wouldn't accidentally find it. Mother Banacians did not carry pistols. They were much calmer and quieter, and unlike the Herzegovinians who mentioned Tito loudly, they spoke quietly about God. In those interesting contrasts, my knowledge about the family as the nucleus of life force matured.
"WEATHER" Does that Herzegovinian origin have any influence on you??
DRAGAN BJELOGRLIĆ: Why not! It's something I got from my father. Herzegovina in its rational and irrational sense is a part of me. Once upon a time, I said at a gathering how the term Herzegovinian became a title among Serbs as Be Code English. From my father, grandfather, the entire Bjelogrlic family, I have a beautiful - let it be conceited - sublime feeling when you say you are from Herzegovina.
You grew up in Belgrade., but you are often in Baranda near Opovo.
I was born in Opovo due to circumstances: my mother is from Baranda, and my father founded cooperatives there. They met there, my brother and I were born there, and when I was nine months old, I came to Belgrade. But my mother's house, my grandparents', remained, and since Baranda is close to Belgrade, I spent my summers there, often went there... Later, my brother and I wanted to make a refuge there, and later our families also came. I remained attached to that region, calmed down by that boring, flat, Banat wind. There I write and work with writers, spend time with my family, society... It is geographically very close to me, and yet it represents a sufficient escape from all that I live in Belgrade.
You were a wolf., Do you still support Partizan?...
Yes...And that is not compatible with you? To tell you the truth, I don't remember any werewolves cheering for Zvezda, ha-ha... But let's not elaborate. School was easy for me, especially natural sciences - I guess that's the Herzegovinian gene. And as for Partizan, I started cheering thanks to my brother Goran, who took me to matches. There is no deeper root. By the way, there were only two of us in the class for Partizan, and everyone else was rooting for Zvezda, and even Hajduk and OFK.
photo: printscreenDRAGAN BJELOGRLIĆ. ACTOR: Kao Sirogojno (film and series Bosko Buha);…
You started your acting career at the age of fifteen: you play the role of Sirogojn in one of the best Yugoslav films - "Bosko Buha". What did you get out of shooting that project??
The most important things! That was my first contact with acting, something I knew nothing about or had naive boyish ideas about. I worked with one of our greatest directors, Branko Bauer...I remember very well that, finishing the role, I asked him what he thought - could I be an actor? Branko was a great gentleman, a man who impressed you with his behavior and every gesture. He looked at me and said: "You can, although one of your eyes is behind the camera." You could also do what I do". He wanted to say that I can be a director. That's what I remembered when I started thinking about directing.
Some kind of prophecy, isn't it?
It was not a prophecy, but an observation of a great man like Branko Bauer. He saw that I am not an actor who, when the director tells him something, immediately runs to do it. But I look, I ask how it will be filmed... I really have one eye and one thought behind the camera, although this can annoy some directors.
photo: aleksandar letić…Tane (series) Shadows over the Balkans)
And you when you direct??
And yes and no. But in principle no, because I like to make a scene together with the actors. We stand in front of the camera and then I look at what I would do if I were in their place. However, not all actors are the same. Some like to negotiate, and some like to come to the set and work immediately.
Despite his very notable role in Boško Buha, you enroll in the Faculty of Civil Engineering. When and how did you decide to become an actor??
I realized how much acting means to me only when I entered the Faculty of Civil Engineering, which was my father's dying wish - I lost him at the age of 18. My studies went sloppily, because I was fundamentally uninterested. I constantly went to the theater and even organized the Drama Group at Građevina, and was active in the famous KST. I barely finished my first year and went to FDU for admission. In the first year, I was shortlisted, and the following year I was accepted into the first class of Professor Vlado Jevtović. That class, informally, is considered the best in the history of FDU. So I am also grateful to Professor Bajčetić for not accepting me, as well as to Professor Jevtović who accepted me...
What did student life mean to you??
My class was a collection of distinct individuals, of different human and acting temperaments and colors, but with a strong collective spirit that kept us together and keeps us together to this day. I consider the process I went through at FDU with my professor and exceptional class to be key to everything I have done and achieved in my life.
Acting in the series "Bolji zhivot" you have gained great popularity. How do you remember her??
When I look back, "Bolji život" was the first big series in our country that had about a hundred episodes in four or five seasons of broadcasting, very high quality and popular. I was the most popular in my life then, as were all of us who played in it. It is still said, and today people cannot believe, how the streets were empty on Sunday evenings because everyone is watching "Bolji život". And that in all of Yugoslavia out of some twenty-two million people. And then life somehow arranged for it to be the last Yugoslav series: seven days after the broadcast of the last episode of "Bolje života", the war started in Slovenia. Therefore, people remember this series as the last thing that was nice and that ties them to Yugoslavia. From that series, I gained recognition, sympathy and familiarity with the audience all over the former Yugoslavia, so I felt very comfortable. And I still feel that way today - of course, because of everything I did afterwards - in every corner of the former state.
Can you compare the time of your maturation with that of today's girls and boys? Who has it harder??
Uh, everything was different. And the world, and the space we live in and the values we strive for... It's just hard to compare. Today's world is overwhelmed by its lack of ideas and tired of the turbulent twentieth century. He stands and waits for something to happen. It's waiting for that 21st century that hasn't really started yet. If we are lucky enough to somehow make it happen, the new generations will have lives in a "mirror reflection" in relation to us. We spent our youth in a world where meaning could be found, and today's youth wanders through an idealess world. I believe, however, that it will be replaced by a world of new ideas and a new quality of thinking about the world. I wish them something like that with all my heart.
When you mention the twentieth century, it seems to me that that period is a key inspiration for you?
That twentieth century was incredibly intense. It was the time of two great wars, great ideas and ideologies, the time of Nazism and Communism, the first of which was much more fatal than the second... There were also great scientific achievements, great civilizational shifts, so the world changed much more and significantly than in the whole previous history. The twentieth century is a huge inspiration to me, especially when we are talking about us. I think that it was a period of great wandering of the Serbian people, a century in which he found himself in many temptations and, as time shows, he did not find the right answer to many of them. I believe that history is a great treasure of our people and that's why I find great inspiration in it.
How much through your series and movies that take place in the past, you talk about today's time?
It kind of comes naturally, I don't insist on parallels. In all those series and films, I deal primarily with people. I'm looking for him, because I'm always interested in where that man is, that individual in the time in which he lives. And when I start like that, the parallels with today's time are imposed.
From being a successful actor, you became a successful director...
I thought about directing for a long time, but I didn't have the courage to break through. And then life arranges for it to happen spontaneously. We were working on the series "Vratiće se rode", and director Goran Gajić had to travel to America urgently. We couldn't stop filming because the broadcast had already started and he then told me: "Go direct, you'll know it." And then I actually directed a few episodes. Before that, I had already worked on the script with the writers and was the creator of the series from the beginning, so I knew everything I needed to know, jumped in the water and swam.
How much directorial water speaks about you? You write scripts., you produce, you direct and act in your projects. What does all this give you?, and it is lacking in the acting itself? The desire to be independent, the ability to create your own worlds or the need to dominate the creation of a work of art?
All that together. But when you mention "dominance in creation", that's an interesting thesis. When we talk about the position of a director who develops a project according to his own idea - that is, he did not receive a finished script - and this has been the case with me until now, a kind of autocratic position is imposed as normal. However, it is not so. The creation of films is a collective process. However, the director must know what he wants and, at the right moments, cut things. It is also his obligation, without which he cannot be good and push the project forward. But - believe me - I rely a lot on my collaborators: from the director of photography and scenographers, to editors, costume designers and make-up artists to, especially, actors. That's why making a film is a good test for participating in politics and government affairs. Simply, the person leading the team must know what he wants and must make decisions, but only in close cooperation with his colleagues. My experience tells me that this is the only way to success.
photo: private archive d. white-throatedFilm director Montevideo
You are always the initiator of your own projects. Has anyone else offered you anything??
Yes, but until now I have not done projects where I would get a finished script. Someone would offer me an idea. For example, the idea for the film and series "Montevideo, god saw you" was based on the book. Likewise, Željko Joksimović gave me the idea to make the movie "Tom", and for "Guardians of the Formula" my friend Kuki gave me a book and said - "Read, this can make a movie". So, people brought me ideas, but I initiated and developed projects.
Throughout your career, you have shown an interest in politics and public interest? Your position has always been clear. - the nineties and today. And then and today you were on the street, in civil protests...
I have always had the need to have a dialogue with the society in which I live. As soon as I graduated from FDU, I created the theater troupe "Plexus - Boris Piljnjak", which produced two engaging performances in the late eighties - the second one ends with all the men from a party putting on uniforms and going to the war that begins in Kosovo in 1990. Then came the films "Black Bomber", "Beautiful Villages..", "Wounds"... So my "rebel tenure" is long. Faced with complicated social and life circumstances, my rebelliousness often had to replace artistic engagement with street and direct engagement. And, like any rebellion, it was doomed to defeat. I also count the last one there. But here I will refer to Andrić who says in "Unrests": "Your victory has a low forehead and red eyes." Everything that is of hope, consolation and beauty in the world is revealed in the eyes of the vanquished". Only defeat sharpens the vision. It's my choice…
And something else. Those defeats also give birth to victories, and victories for me are also the respect of people whose opinion I care about. I also include the selection for the person of the year of the weekly "Vreme".
You are on the sidelines in your social engagement "humiliated and insulted". Where does that come from??
Probably from that rebellious spirit and that desolate desperate desire and feeling that this society can and must be better…. And our society is such that we constantly have many humiliated and insulted, but also disqualified and deceived. They are not difficult to recognize and if you have any humanity and honor, you must be on their side.
Therefore, you see yourself on the left side of the political spectrum?
Of course. The older people are, they usually go to the right, and I, on the other hand, go to the left. However, I have already mentioned the confusion and lack of ideas in today's world, so it is difficult to precisely find your position there. As in the whole world, and especially in this unhappy Serbia of ours. But I certainly hit
from the left. And I'll just...
You have long guessed the theater to the film. Why??
This path I took, in the nineties of the last century, to create my own projects and create my own destiny - has its price. I followed a more difficult path, I didn't want to be a member of the ensemble, although I was a scholarship holder of the Yugoslav Drama Theater - then and now it is considered an offer for a young actor that cannot be refused. And so, I created my own theater troupe, wanting to do projects that interest me. I made films and series in which I created my own world. Now, the fact that I set my own path brings what I have now, on the one hand, and on the other hand, I paid the price by being deprived of an entire theater repertoire and big roles as an actor. I didn't play Shakespeare, Strinberg, Ibsen... In life, one pays for the other.
Are there roles that have been offered to you?, and today you regret rejecting them?
There are more, but I know one role for sure. Srđan Dragojević offered me to play an angel in his film "We are not angels" and Žika Todorović the devil. As I was filming "Black Bomber" at the time, I could not accept the role.
And the roles you regret accepting?
There are others like that, but I wouldn't mention them now, it's not correct...
Your roles Milan (Serbian soldier) from the movies "Beautiful villages, nice up there" and Kureta (criminal) iz "Rana" for many, they are the personification of the nineties of the last century. What did you manage to bring to those two characters?
When a work goes beyond the artistic, aesthetic and craft approach and deals with something that hurts you, eats away at you, which is your life, then the scope of such a work is much greater, deeper and more significant. The irrational dimension that is the most significant in art is triggered. Those nineties were a shock for all of us who came out of the cradled socialism of the seventies and eighties, something that no one could even dream of. It is that moment when everyone - if they prepare well and have the necessary talent - give much more. Of course, it implies relying on a well-written role and good direction, which in both of these cases is an example...
Did you have a model according to which you built the complex role of Milan in "Beautiful villages"?
I am nobody. We started filming in Visegrad - a war zone - then continued in Serbia. I saw people of my generation who participated in the war and saw the constant shadow in their eyes, the absence of joy in their smiles. I immediately took that for the motto roles. I mean - I was constantly trying to find the character that I am portraying a problem that he carries all the time. In this film, playing the role of Milan, I smiled a full smile only twice. At the beginning when I say "What a war" and at the end of the film. That was my concept...
With its completion, the film implies that the scars of war will remain very deep, isn't it?
Like most of us, I was not aware at the time, nor could I have predicted that even thirty years after the end of the war, so many of its consequences would remain and that we would still be talking about them. Then I believed and was sure that reconciliation would happen in these areas. It is a daily need both among ourselves in Serbian society and with our neighbors. But to tell you the truth, I don't believe it will happen in my lifetime.
You recently promoted a movie. "Keepers of the formula" throughout the region and everywhere you were very warmly welcomed. Do you have the feeling that something is changing in mutual relations??
There is no more hatred and anger in most people. But some distance and mistrust remained. It also seems to me that there is no longer any desire either to hug each other, or to truly be good neighbors. This is perhaps the logical reaction of people when they look at the entire twentieth century and what it left behind. However, as a person who remained committed to Yugoslavia - no matter how idealistic and utopian it may seem - what disappoints me the most is that all these years after the nineties have created such an atmosphere that our children no longer have the need to communicate with people who speak the same language, listen to the same music, they watch the same movies and live the same lives. I see it in my children, their environment, young people in the entire area of the former Yugoslavia. They no longer have the opportunity to see each other and hang out like we did - life doesn't work that way anymore.
When you spoke at the Serbia against violence protest, at one point you were on the verge of tears. What emotion took you away??
I was on the verge of tears the whole time, just one moment I couldn't control it anymore. That was when I uttered the sentence: "...we are indebted to the children of Ribnikar." We owe them justice and peace. We owe them everything that we could not give them in our lifetime...". And now I want to cry, since that debt remains. And to them and to all of us...
As the initiator of ProGlas, How do you see its reach??
It is early, difficult, and perhaps impossible to talk about the successes of ProGlas, given the ambitions and long-term work we have set for ourselves. I can't answer whether he succeeded or not. All that has happened in the last two months - two hundred thousand people who signed ProGlas, attendance at our rallies and tribunes, great interest of people and professional media, demonization of the regime - shows that we caused both attention and a great reaction with our appearance and that something is obvious so it was necessary. From the beginning, the task of ProGlas was to awaken people to take an interest in their reality, because that is the only way a society can move forward and change for the better. It takes time. But all that happened, including the unprecedented theft of votes and electoral engineering that none of us could have foreseen, renders the very act of election meaningless, destroys the foundations of democratic thinking and destroys any thought of a civilizational advance, so necessary for this country and its people. The question is whether we, as a society, will have the strength to deal with something like that. The same is true for ProGlas, but it will certainly be easier for the society to fight with him.
How do you see Serbia after the elections?? Is the country heading for a major social crisis and apathy?
It is too early for this answer. It is clear that at least one part of the public was faced with the fact that it is really not just media, legal and all other social unfreedoms; here it is no longer just a question of endangering democracy and rushing into an open autocracy. Here we are faced with a plan of complete privatization of the state, where all segments of society are controlled by the "octopus" system, according to the already tested practice in Montenegro and some South American countries. Whether that plan will succeed remains an open question. But the apathy of the citizens is certainly something that the plan counts on.
And where do you see yourself in the coming period??
Where I've always been. In the creative challenges of his work, of which there are many waiting. I will soon start filming the third season of "Shadows over the Balkans", and I have a very inspiring story and a co-production with Greece "I, Pink Panther" waiting for me. I also have an offer from France for an interesting project that reconnects Serbia and France, but in a completely different way compared to "Guardians of the Formula". I am currently negotiating about that and it is possible that it will be my next film project - and I also have something planned to work in the theater in the fall... I have a lot of plans in my work and I will continue to work, because it is my life. But I will continue to deal with the mission of ProGlas. To what extent - none of us knows. It will be determined by social circumstances.
You want to say that the humiliated and insulted can still count on you?
Exactly!
The greatest influence
Five films and series that Dragan Bjelogrlić says had the greatest influence on him.
MOVIES:
1. Amarkord – Federico Fellini
2. Dizziness – Alfred Hitchcock
3. Good guys – Martin Scorsese
4. The lives of others – Florian Henckel
5. National class – Goran Markovic
SERIES:
1. Breaking Bad – USA
2. The Empire of Vice – USA
3. Most – Sweden/Denmark
4. Fargo – USA
5. Ethnos – Turkey
