What
happens to otherwise normal people when the amount of civil
disorder is so rampant that authorities cannot stop the chaos?
Contrast Belgradians and Beirutians in two recently Political
Film Society-nominated films: In most Eastern European countries
as the Cold War ended, the answer was for the leaders to resign,
new leaders to rise to power democratically, and for the situation
to calm down as the government was seen as reasonably legitimate.
Not so in Yugoslavia, where ethnic scapegoating on all sides
led to civil war. We have heard about problems in Bosnia,
Croatia, and Kosovo, but what about Serbia and its capital
Belgrade itself? The embargo, the corruption, the mass demonstrations,
the repression, the false propaganda, and the wars have so
impacted Belgradians that the presumption of civility in interpersonal
relations has been totally destroyed, if we are to accept
the premise of the film Cabaret Balkan, the
American title for Bure Baruta (in France, Paris
de poudre, and in England The Powder Keg),
a Serbian film directed by Goran Paskalievic, based on the
play by Dejan Dukovski. The film consists of a series of episodes
in which a minor indiscretion becomes the basis for major
retaliation; all perspective is lost because nobody is happy,
and someone else must be blamed. Although the film claims
that there are one hundred Belgradians for every police officer,
we see none acting to stop the massive chaos. Indeed, in one
scene a taxicab driver admits to breaking nearly every bone
in the body of a police officer who months ago had beaten
his testicles to impotence after catching him engaging in
petty theft. We also view a minor fenderbender accident so
escalates that the owner of the damaged car destroys treasures
in the apartment of the owner of the other car and nearly
rapes the owner's son, who was responsible for the scratch.
A couple are quarreling, and a man with a gun tries to rape
the woman while his associate holds her lover at gunpoint.
Two boxing partners admit sexual indiscretions to each other,
only to punch each other out, and plenty of blood flows. Other
stories are even more grotesque. In Cabaret Balkan, a nightclub,
a master of ceremonies tries to tell the horror like it is
but impresses no one, since words no longer have shock value
compared to the reality that anything terrible can happen
to anyone anytime. The film dashes any hope that international
troops in parts of the former Yugoslavia will return home
anytime soon and, more profoundly, asks but does not answer
at what point civilized behavior breaks down, and endless
feuding and even genocide begin? Analyses of race riots in
the United States, feuding in Northern Ireland, and civil
war in East Timor have tended to focus on clashes between
groups with opposing interests, but Cabaret Balkan
presents one interpersonal encounter after another as a clash
with no rational basis for compromise. The film has many epigrammatic
statements, such as the repeated phrase "I am guilty" in one
of the episodes. However, the most appropriate quote that
comes to mind is that in Yugoslavia today there is "no society;
and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent
death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish,
and short," as philosopher Thomas Hobbes stated in 1651, characterizing
the English civil war (1642-48) as a war of all against all.
However, there is little likelihood today, based on the film's
representations, that any party in Yugoslavia can accept Hobbes's
solution-a strong, central state to which all would accord
respect. The film is also nominated as best exposé. MH
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