Die Schwerkraft des Krieges. Zur intellektuellen Attraktion in „Čarlston za Ognjenku“
The Gravity of War. On the Intellectual Attraction in “Čarlston za Ognjenku”

Summary/Abstract: The short paper reviews the Serbian film „Čarlston za Ognjenku“ (English title: „Tears for Sale“). Uroš Stojanović’s fabulous story is set in the 1920s amidst the imaginary Balkan village named Pokrp – a village without men who were eradicated by generations of war, and women hunting for men to get life back to their village. The story is about the encounter of occident and orient, of tradition and civilisation, of a couple of mourners with two entertainers, and it is a story about how a war-torn civilization has transformed a productive land into a mere minefield, or, according to the film’s language, a Vinograd (vineyard) into a Minograd (mineyard). Staged with modern special effects the film does not offer simply easy-going entertainment. The explosive power of the village’s minefields and the desire for love (actually a zest for life) derives from a more serious horizon of imagination behind the scenes with numerous allusions to Serbian and European culture and cinematography which does not lack parallels to the present. The review looks upon the associative potential and the intertextuality of the film, and suggests a reading that goes along with Sergei Eisenstein’s theory of intellectual attraction.

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