04/11/2022 - The filmmaker's feature-length debut follows an anthropologist obsessively studying an old ritual and its symbols and dealing with her often lonely life

(© Domagoj Lozina)

After a successful career as a film editor, Dubravka Turić turned to filmmaking. Her shorts Belladonna (2015), Cherries (2017) and Tina (2019) were screened at big festivals like Venice (where Belladonna won the main award in the Horizons Shorts section), Sundance, Rotterdam, Cannes and Sarajevo. Her feature-length debut Traces [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Dubravka Turić
film profile] world-premiered at Warsaw, and its national premiere took place at the 20^th Zagreb Film Festival. On that occasion, we took the opportunity to talk to her about the film.

Cineuropa: Your film deals predominantly with matters of loneliness and the challenge of restarting one’s life, but much of it comes from anthropology and one custom in particular. Does measuring really exist as custom or you invented it for the sake of the film?
Dubravka Turić: The ritual of “Mirila” is completely authentic, coming from the region of South Velebit in Croatia, but the practice of it stopped in the 1950s. I noticed it completely by chance during one hiking excursion there. I was fascinated by it and I started studying it, reading all the literature that was accessible, going back to Velebit dozens of times, even going to some distant locations, climbing a steep mountain… The story of “Mirila” and the unique funeral ceremony is really one of a kind, but it is not that well known. It inspired me to write a story about an anthropologist who studies the symbols on those rocks and stones. The traces left by some people a long time ago.

The documentary about it that you show in the film is new, yet it is very faithful to the style of television programmes from the times of Yugoslavia. How did you recreate it?
I originally imagined the short archival film within the film like something from the late 1950s. I studied the documentaries from that period and reconstructed the feeling, in terms of framing and colour palette, and of course the costumes and hairstyles. I have to thank the actor Tvrtko Jurić who played the scientist-presenter for being especially compelling in that role. Outside of Croatia, the audiences think that the film within the film really is archival documentary material. I really enjoyed filming it.

The protagonist is alone for most of the time, so she has to exist in the frame in a striking way. Was Marija Škaričić your first and only choice?
Marija is an extremely talented actress and an endearing, sensitive person. I deemed that she would completely understand the story and the character of Ana, and take it to a new level with her acting skills. She had a lot of work to do, given that she had to be present in almost every frame, often alone. She embodies different states of mind and emotion, she communicates with objects such as walls, screens, papers, pictures, rocks. She constructed a great role with well thought-out minimalist acting methods.

The relative absence of dialogue means that you have to use other means to create a specific dramaturgy, especially in a symbol-ridden film. Could you comment on the use of lights, music, sound design to tell the story?
In Traces, I wanted to communicate states of mind and emotions without some grand dialogue scenes, but through powerful imagery, frame compositions, atmosphere, sounds, editing rhythm… Every detail was of the utmost importance to me, everything in every frame spoke for itself and had to be of service to the story. There was no improvisation, I prepared everything up front, every little detail. As a film director I chose a small piece from universal reality that I wanted to communicate to the audience. Everything seen and heard in the film comes from that piece. That is the reason why nothing within it could be random.

The structure of film is quite loose, so you could end it at several different points and in several different ways, or you could let it go on for a little longer. Is it just like life?
Every film can be ended in many ways, and I picked this one. It was the most logical closure for the events and the dynamism of everything that happened in the film up to that moment. In the end, there is no simple solution and this is just a short time in the life of the film’s protagonist. Those are all processes, long-term, sometimes even painful. That is the reason why the ending is as it is. It suggests that everything will be fine eventually, but it takes time. Just like life.