Laughter and Tragedy of the Absurd: Identifying Common Characteristics of Balkan Comedies Under State Socialism
Comedy and comic conventions offer the possibility for laughter as a therapeutic and liberating force, as well as provide reflections on the absurdity of the everyday through the use of humour and chaos. This paper examines how Balkan comedies during the state socialist period used traditional comic conventions to offer critiques of the political and social systems, through analysis of three films: Ciguli Miguli (Branko Marjanović, Yugoslavia, 1952, released in 1977), Koncert në vitin 1936 (Concert in 1936, Saimir Kumbaro, Albania, 1978), and Господин за един ден (King for a Day, Nikolay Volev, Bulgaria, 1983). Drawing on the stylistic and visual conventions of silent comedies, these films create a range of comic characters and situations: the misadventures of peasant Purko in King for a Day, the water fight between musicians in Ciguli Miguli, and the policeman’s mannerisms in Concert in 1936. Furthermore, some common characteristics inherent to the cinema of Balkan countries in this period will be identified, such as the struggle between the value system of tradition vs. modernity, civilisation vs. primitiveness, European-ness vs. Balkan-ness, suggesting that such Balkanist constructs which continue to feature in popular cinema in the recent period, did not disappear but were internalised by the communist ideologies.
2. What are some common stylistic and aesthetic characteristics and tropes used in the cinemas of the Balkans?
3. How do stereotypical representations of people and situations contribute to typecasting and reinforcement of essentialist discourses (on race/ethnicity/identity/gender)?
4. How do historical readings of film genres contribute to a better understanding of recent trends in mainstream national cinemas?
Ana Grgić
Ana Grgic holds a PhD in Film Studies from the University of St Andrews, with a thesis on early cinema in the Balkans. Her scholarly contributions have been published in The Film Festival Yearbook 5: Archival Film Festivals (2013), Frames Cinema Journal (2013), Divan Film Festival Symposium Papers (2014, 2015), Cinemas of Paris (2015), Studies in Eastern European Cinema (2016), Short Film Studies (2017), Film Quarterly (2018) and East European Film Bulletin. She has co-edited a special issue on Albanian cinema for KinoKultura, and as a Board member of the Albanian Cinema Project she was involved in the preservation and exhibition of Balkan cinema heritage (Archives in Motion).