STUDIES AND RESEARCH
Patriarchy in Zvonimir Berković’s movies
Croatian films have always
consistently advertised patriarchy, that is to say, social
situation in which men have predominance over women in
all significant areas of social life, starting with family
life, socio-economical and cultural life. However, in modern
films, especially in the cases of Krešo Golik and Zvonimir
Berković, who often deal with women’s roles, patriarchy
appears in particularly interesting forms. In the films
of Zvonimir Berković, female characters are some of the
most subtle and most sophisticated dramatic characters
in Croatian cinema. The author assigns them an important
role in his philosophy of life: the mysterious female ingredient
introduces unpredictability in male-female relations, often
identifying itself with the principle of destiny on the
Shakespearian battlefield of emotions and passion. Berković’s
movies are also interesting because they are absorbed with
the urban surrounding where patriarchy is harder to trace,
that is to say, patriarchy appears in a distorted, interestingly
hidden way.
This paper is trying to detect a patriarchal
situation that in each of four Berković’s movies female
characters solve in different ways. It strives to establish
a common denominator that underlies life philosophies of
women that resolve their positions in Berković’s movies.
To sum up, we may say that movies in question are constructed
in such a way that all relationships, stereotypes and actions
of characters disintegrate at the very beginning, while
the dramatic plot is revealed as one great subversion of
meaningfulness of the principal problem. Every attempt
to stand up to the norms of patriarchal society; to the
norms that belittle women, ends in death or misfortune
(The Journey, Countess Dora), and is accompanied
by the inevitable feeling of guilt and neurosis, typical
for those who refuse to ’stick to their place’. Every time
a woman manages to adapt to the patriarchal model, she
is rewarded at least by an illusion of gain (Rondo,
Love Letters With Intent).
The stronger the pressure
of the community and the resistance of woman, the smaller
is the possibility of her favourably resolving her patriarchal
situation. Woman approaches the patriarchal world attempting
to archive ’all or nothing’, but that world is relativized,
ruled by double morals: male irresponsibility is punished
by social unease, while female irresponsibility is resolved
by punishing mechanisms of ’destiny’. Act of accepting
this situation reveals itself as pure cynicism — a woman
needs to accept the fact that her identity is hidden in
her femininity and sexual appurtenance, independent of
her character and nature. This is the source of her personal
capital, the ticket for her life show.
Sanja Kovačević |
