FROM THE HISTORY OF CROATIAN CINEMA

Konjanik – from the novel by Ivan Aralica to the film by Branko Ivanda

Horserider (Konjanik) is a pearl novel, the first in a series of novels by Ivan Aralica which introduces some literary features of subsequent historical novels but also some unusual compositional solutions: the key flashback, the break of the story in the sixth chapter by which the author's narrator leads the recipient back to the starting point in the novel – the tragedy of the Revač family, the point where the author begins his narration. In this way Ivanda stepped away from the novel insisting on the chronotope and successiveness. On the actantial level there are some twenty protagonists, with a Muslim girl and a Catholic boy as the victims of love at the centre of action. They embark on a journey full of adventures because of their forbidden relationship which becomes really complex on the general level, threatening with new riots at the border and conflicts between the Venetians and the Ottoman Empire. The end of the ninth chapter brings the closing, while the remaining three chapters give explanation to the surprising resolution of the plot. Despite the deviation from the novel and minor changes to its semiotics and semantics, Branko Ivanda's film witnesses dramatic historical events at the border of two worlds.

Miljenko Buljac