Iron Facts and Sensitive Selves: East/West Division and Sexuality in Yugoslav Film in the 1980s

• In Event: Visual Culture in Late Socialism

Abstract

The paper deals with the intersection of historical facts and personal histories of coming-of-age represented in Yugoslav films in the 1980s, in the demise of East/West political division in world politics. The given period was, paradoxically, at the same time, colored by both political tension between “communist” and “capitalist” political blocks, and the up-coming breakage of that same tension. This paradoxical interplay between “warm” and “cold”, at the demise of Cold War in Europe reflected on film production of Yugoslavia as a hidden and subtle political background of personal histories of individuals and groups. The politics of sexuality, represented through tension between construction of facts and the youth illusions, is strongly intersected with political background of East/West constructed divisions. The paper explores how sexual economies and identifications, intersected with adopted images of politically divided world, produce discourses of disillusioned, but still capable of survival individuals, ready for practices of change, migrations and dislocations. This thesis is explored through the analysis of the excerpts from following films: Varljivo leto 1968 (Deceitful Summer of 1986), Iskušavanje đavola (Devil’s Temptation), Lepota poroka (Beauty of Vice), Samo jednom se ljubi (One can love only once), Granica (Border), Nešto između (Something in Between), Krizno razdoblje (Crisis Period), and the others.

Author

• Marija Grujic, Institute of Literature and Art (Serbia)