Dream, Memory, and Form: Mixed Media Recollections in Marko Grba Singh’s Rampart

• In Event: Yugoslav Internationalisms III: Domestic Recollections and International Gazes in Cinema after Yugoslavia

Abstract

Although based on a recurring image that had been haunting the director’s sleep, Rampart (2021) was made after the dream ceased to occur: “I’m leaving the city, suddenly, I become aware of an enormous structure on the outskirts, a mountain, a building, a rocket, it’s too scary to look at.” As a noun, the title stands for protective constructions; as a verb, it refers to the act of erecting them. Ultimately, it evokes the apartment Grba Singh grew up in, reconstructed in Rampart through family movies, television commercials, and present footage. Dwelling on the multiplicity of mediums that slip into one another throughout the film, this paper explores its formal movements as it transforms dream and memory into narrative. The images peeled off from the walls by the director who collects them do seem to enter a dream-like construct — but their material is of a different kind. How does Rampart draw from both realms to place, in the same continuum, video games, television commercials, and home footage of the 1999 NATO bombings?

Author

• Mariana Hebling, Stanford U