VENICE 2024 Giornate degli Autori
Review: Possibility of Paradise
- VENICE 2024: The latest effort by prolific Serbian filmmaker Mladen Kovačević is an impressive observational documentary set in Bali, with a narrative that’s quite open to interpretation

Prolific Serbian documentary filmmaker Mladen Kovačević has, throughout his career, tried out different stylistic approaches and addressed a wide variety of topics. His last two films, Another Spring [+see also:
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film profile], were as different as one can imagine, respectively an archive-driven disaster movie and an observational piece set in China. His newest effort, Possibility of Paradise [+see also:
trailer
interview: Mladen Kovačević
film profile], which has just world-premiered as a Special Event in Venice's Giornate degli Autori, is the one that is definitely the most open to interpretation.
But that’s not to say it is an experimental, poetic or meditative experience. On the contrary, this is a rock-solid work with a clear, if unconventional, concept and top-notch technical credits. It is just that its total lack of exposition lets the viewer build their own story out of the presented elements.
Filmed in Bali, the documentary opens on a group of schoolgirls who are cleaning their classroom as they wait for the rain to stop. This segment is followed by one on a wealthy Serbian woman (her identity is gathered from one sentence she speaks in her language) who is building a villa, where she will apparently support and shelter local abused or orphaned girls. Here, a tearful exchange with one of them surprises the audience, who have not been prepared for such a heightened emotional state that hints at an underlying tension that’s present throughout the film.
The following segments and characters include an Australian family frightened of a snake in their bedroom. This is a chance for us to be introduced to several impressive specimens as the animal-control person uncovers them, after a fascinating search in the dark with flashlights. Then, a father and son, speaking English with an accent that is difficult to place, are preparing to leave the island. An Asian influencer, also speaking English to a friend whose face we never see, has recovered from grief over a huge financial loss; a stripper wearing a porcelain mask goes full monty in an elegant number bathed in red light; and a Russian dancer is seen teaching young girls following a striking scene of her own performance in front of a temple. Later, she will speak to her tearful mother on the phone. And a group of diving instructors with possibly Eastern European accents go on a dive in the choppy sea.
As we can see, a lot of the film focuses on expats in Bali, but there is no misery porn focusing on the locals to counterpoint it. This is clearly not what Kovačević is directly interested in, but the viewer will inevitably make their own connections and draw their own conclusions. The director and his regular editor Jelena Maksimović choose to end some of the segments with freeze frames or extreme slow motion, underlining the fact that the narratives feel like they were each plucked out of their own complete films, with most ending at a point when something else is about to happen that we don't get to see.
There is a liminality and a barely definable spirituality in this approach that is supported by Rebekka Kariod's varied score, employing choral singing, synthesisers and strings, sometimes in dissonant or mournful registers. Meanwhile, Marko Milovanović's strong, convincing camerawork is disciplined and classical, alternating between handheld and fixed shots, with clean, intense, natural colours. A final, brief but gorgeous segment particularly benefits from the creative use of sound and visuals.
Possibility of Paradise is a co-production between Serbia's Horopter Film Production and Sweden's MDEMC Produktion AB. Taskovski Films has the international rights.
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