Film Review: St. George Shoots the Dragon (Sveti Georgije ubiva aždahu, 2009)
There is a rather bitter irony in the fact that St. George Shoots the Dragon, a film intended to mark the triumphant return of Serbian epic cinema, is today chiefly remembered for something far more prosaic: the nude scenes of Croatian actress Nataša Janjić. As the old Montenegrin proverb has it, "a cup of honey demands a cup of bile"—and in this instance, the latter considerably outweighs the former.
On paper, the project appeared unimpeachable. Behind the camera stood Srđan Dragojević, arguably the most successful Serbian director of the 1990s, whose darkly comic Mi nismo anđeli (We Are Not Angels), the harrowing Lepa sela lepo gore (Pretty Village, Pretty Flame), and the visceral Rane (Wounds) had established him as a formidable talent. The screenplay was penned by Dušan Kovačević, the celebrated dramatist responsible for such cult classics as Ko to tamo peva (Who's Singin' Over There?) and Maratonci trče počasni krug (Marathon Runners Run a Lap of Honour). The budget, reportedly €4.5 million, represented the largest sum committed to a film in these parts since the dissolution of Yugoslavia—a figure backed by the cultural ministries of both Serbia and Republika Srpska.
The source material, Kovačević's theatrical play written three decades prior and long considered controversial, is set in a small Serbian village hard against the Austro-Hungarian border on the eve of the First World War. Its inhabitants constitute a gallery of colourful provincial types, though the narrative centres upon Katarina (Janjić), a painter from a respectable urban family who has exiled herself to this primitive backwater for love of the young student Gavrilo (Milutin Milošević). The first two Balkan Wars have left him psychologically and physically shattered, however, and he has spurned his betrothed, who consequently finds solace in marriage to Đorđe (Lazar Ristovski), a local gendarme. When passion reignites between the former lovers, Đorđe faces the double humiliation of his wife's infidelity and his professional impotence—Gavrilo, like most of his fellow villagers, earns his living through cross-border smuggling. These domestic intrigues are soon eclipsed by the cataclysm unleashed by the Sarajevo assassination, whose opening salvoes will be fired upon Serbian soil.
The fundamental affliction of St. George Shoots the Dragon is a surfeit of ambition that far exceeds the present capabilities of its creators, who have not been in particularly fine form of late. One gains the distinct impression of three incompatible films forcibly compressed into a single narrative, as though the sheer density of content might somehow compensate for grievous structural deficiencies.
The result is a contradictory, at times almost schizophrenic picture, its authors apparently uncertain of their intentions, torn asunder by competing generic, commercial, and artistic imperatives. The film simultaneously attempts to function as an intimate melodrama, a biting satire on contemporary Serbia, and a solemn historical epic peddling the rather cheap thesis of Serbs as perpetual victims of the twentieth century. It succeeds, unsurprisingly, at none of these endeavours. That Dragojević has entirely lost his way is evidenced by the utterly superfluous sequences depicting the Sarajevo assassination and an Austro-Hungarian aerial bombardment—set pieces that serve neither narrative nor thematic purpose.
What renders the experience marginally tolerable is the more-than-competent acting on display, though this scarcely redeems the enterprise. Indeed, there is a dispiriting sense that Serbian cinema, with productions of this ilk, is increasingly coming to resemble the Croatian cinema of the 1990s—state-subsidised, self-important, and dramatically inert.
Rating: 3/10
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog https://inleo.io/@drax.leo
Substack https://draxster.substack.com/
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
BCH donations: qpvxw0jax79lhmvlgcldkzpqanf03r9cjv8y6gtmk9