Huddersfield
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Unexpectedly, Huddersfield’s vitality does not spring from overt political engagement–it’s a male coming-of-age domestic drama like Mike Leigh’s Ecstasy or Eric Bogosian’s SubUrbia. The crisis for the protagonist, Rasha, isn’t NATO bombings or ethnic cleansing, it’s turning 30. Serbian critic Ana Vujanovic points out that, like many of his contemporaries, Sajtinac excludes “every trace of metaphysics, utopia, historical necessity, or positive criticism.” Sajtinac, who attended TUTA’s opening, said in a postshow discussion, “I’m not writing about the big politics. I’m more interested in the decades of the 20s, years that a lot of guys waste.” Still, it’s easy to see parallels between Rasha’s excruciating inability to grow up and the uncertain thrashings of Serbia in the 90s.
University dropout Rasha lives with his belligerent alcoholic father in a cramped apartment in the bankrupt industrial town of Zrenjanin. He makes a little money by tutoring horny 16-year-old Mila, who gets off showing him home movies of her parents having sex, and amuses himself with boyhood friend Ivan, who’s emerged from years in mental institutions with a stash of powerful psychotropics and a newfound creed, Christian asceticism. But mostly Rasha abides by his motto: “Don’t do anything.” When two other 30-year-old friends, Igor and Doole, show up–Igor is on a visit from Huddersfield, England, where he now lives–the four of them hang out, drinking beer and smoking pot.
