Wednesday, March 12th 2008 at 19h50
L’Entrepôt Paris

Three (Tri)

(Feature film, Yugoslavia, 1965, 80’, Black and white, OVFST)

Directed by: Aleksandar Petrovic
With: Velimir Bata Zivojinovic, Ali Raner, Senka Veletanlic-Petrovic, Voja Miric…
Produced by: Avala Film (Belgrade)

Synopsis:
Three episodes of the war in which a man faces death three times…
“A truly visual and thematic symphony.”

Review:
“Motivated by a psycho-lyrical reflection of German occupation in Yugoslavia, the film is divided in three episodes inspired by the same character (embodied by Bata Zivojinovic, Petrovic’s favourite actor), a student who has become a militant. The film is jointed upon war experience and more specifically that of the death sentence. The hero experiences this situation at first as a witness of a shooting execution and then as a victim during the manhunt. These two attitudes are put together in an “intimate” mediation that is born when the hero glances at his collaborator before her execution.
The unity is only a result of a deliberate choice where shape and gesture, local tone, general rhythm and the repartition of volume respond to “the lyrical movements of the soul, modulations of the reverie and the upheavals of consciousness”. Petrovic knows, almost instinctively, how to sublime everything that is imprecise and fleeting by giving to the anecdotal the appearance of a superior necessity. The lyricism of Petrovic is nothing but poetic realism.”
Cahiers du Cinéma