17/04/2024 - Nicole Vögele takes us to the border between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovinia where the ever-open wounds of a past war coexist with an equally painful present

Magnificent and firmly anchored within a reality depicted in the greatest of detail, The Landscape and the Fury [+see also:
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film profile]. As the director herself explains, telling a story through images and relegating words to second place, and observing and listening rather than demonstrating takes time, a lot of time, and a mindset close to devotion. But the film’s 138 minutes fly by, leaving the audience with a strange sensation, as if they’ve just experienced something wonderful but also frighteningly straightforward.

The story told, or rather the place where the story unfolds, relates to the border outside of the EU between Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, which extends across 932 kilometres. It’s a physical border line which is only interested in the passports of the people who wish to cross it. Here, amidst wonderful forests whose depths conceal the stigmata of a still palpable war, the director has spent many years examining the wounds to which they tragically still bear witness.

Hailing from Afghanistan, but also Syria,  Iraq and Burundi, the men, women and children who end up in Bosnia’s small border villages - without shoes or money because they’ve been robbed by the Croatian police who have then expelled them from the EU - harbour terrible stories. Being able to rest, even if just for a few days, being able to resume the small, everyday activities which they’d thought they’d forgotten (sharing a smile, sleeping, eating a good meal) is an extraordinary thing for them. The generosity and empathy of those living in these villages, captured subtly by the director, from a certain distance and without labouring the point, emerge from the film like a gentle caress.

Punctuated by the seasons which pass by inexorably, the film imposes its own rhythm onto the viewer, depicting co-existing realities which superimpose, like layers of dust. In this sense, the film navigates between the past - made palpable by the many mines which are still in the ground following the war and by the rare and sincere stories of survivors - and the present of the people living in these villages and of those who randomly happen to be there, despite never having planned or desired it.

The rarity of the words spoken in the film only enhance their worth, as if each of them were of capital importance. It also forces the audience to pay even greater attention to aspects of the movie which are often relegated to the background: noises and sounds which become words (sound design comes courtesy of Jonathan Schorr). As suggested by the title, it’s the fury of a landscape at once magnificent, almost poignant and insidious that the director tries to capture, urging us to think, though leisurely.

Between resignation in the face of a kind of human cruelty which is incredibly hard to understand and hope born out of the capacity of those living in this border zone to feel empathy with people who are simply looking to survive, as was once the case for them, the film captures emotions and sensations which could easily have evaporated without anyone ever noticing them.

The Landscape and the Fury is produced by Beauvoir Films in co-production with SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen. Taskovski Films are managing international sales.

(Translated from Italian)