FROM THE HISTORY OD CROATIAN CINEMA

Krešo Golik’s One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away – critical reception and quality

The critical reception of Krešo Golik's One Song a Day Takes Mischief Away is widespread in terms of time, level and key aspects of interest but mainly at one when it comes to the eternal qualities of this work that has often been said to be the best Croatian film. As such qualifications, especially when they are part of the argumentation of high-level criticism, always invite to questioning, new confrontations with the film and its reflective written review are possible and necessary. This review notes the continuous existence of high-level criticism that, in opposition to the readings of the film as being basically accepted by the masses, lightsome and professionally made, doesn't break through as dominant but articulates itself through the reconcilable thesis that the film is on the border between the high-level and the popular. Thus giving the possibility to equally note what the wider audience appreciates and what provokes the eye of the critic. In most cases authors playfully deal with the subject-matter of the film and the question to which extent the petty bourgeoisie is credibly depicted and to which extent it is criticized in a completely stylized form. Questioning the relation between film and history points to the fact that the film is creating and simultaneously conveying mentalities, playing with the limitations of the media, emphasizing its artificiality but at the same time opening up to the trend of writing "little histories". The quality of the film as well as its reception are of a dual nature. Therefore the dimensions that impose themselves upon the focal points of critic focus are being widely covered: characters, focalization, music, humour, degree of authenticity of the mentality and milieu, use of the film medium – especially modernist processes in an apparently simple and genre-defined work. The film invites to new reviews with its insufficiently read components such as the function of some details or hints to postmodernism.

Silvestar Mileta