"Ovce od gipsa" (in Croatian; "Witnesses "in English, 2003), written and directed by  Croatian actor/writer/director Vinko Bresnan is one of those films in which a story is told multiple times. It was far less clear to me whose account/viewpoint was which in the different iterations than in Akira Kurosawa's definitive "Rashômon." New information was added, though not just by each  flashbacks reaching further back and forward as in "Memento."

The English title "witnesses" seems odd. Three Croatian men in army uniforms wait for a visitor (visiting the mother of one of them we will learn) to leave before blowing up the house (and de facto warehouse) of an ethnically Serbian black marketer. The Serb is supposed to be gone (to Hungary), but when he hears noises comes out and is shot by blasts of automatic rifle fire from two guns.

The next morning is the funeral of the father of the long-nosed one, Jusko (Kresimir Mikic). His mother ((Mirjana Karanovic), quite dismayed by this latest trouble on top of mourning her husband (killed in action against Serbian forces) is an accomplice after the fact. At the funeral, she will speak to the mayor, Dr. Matic (Ljubomir Kerekes), seeking to have investigation of the murder slowed at least until her son and his pals are back at the front. She also orders the three not to involve her other son, Kreso (Leon Lucev) who is returning for the funeral.

Kreso lives with a journalist (Alma Prica) who pressed the police inspector Barbir (Drazen Kuhn) to serious investigation of the crime, while the mayor is pressing hard against it. Eventually, Kreso learns of a loose end, a witness (in the singular) and takes care of it (her) after a nearly lethal confrontation with Josko.

The war goes on with some of the Croatian soldiers/murderers going off in trucks. And animosities do not seem to have decreased any, though a few of the characters have catharses of sorts.


The 83-minute movie is drably lit, showing recurrent foolishness from a young bully armed with an automatic rifle (Josko) and the complicity of most everyone else with murder of a longtime resident of the "wrong" ethnicity. Similar things were happening in majority Serb areas to Croats, which is part of what dismayed Croatian nationalists about a Croatian movie showing a Serb as a victim rather than a killer—the very mentality that got so many killed in "ethnic cleansing" across the former Yugoslavia.

Bresnan opens with a very lengthy tracking shot (to compare to Johnnie To's in "Breaking News" or Orson Welles's in "Touch of Evil") and made an interesting film on a very low budget. I think that "Before the Rain" and "No Man's Land" are more impressive takes on ehtnic hatreds in the Balkans, with larger scopes, but "Witnesses" is not far behind.


©2009, Stephen O. Murray

Recommended:
Yes