Central European University, Budapest / Department of Gender Studies
Fall 2004

Introduction

              Although celluloid depiction of lesbianism can hardly raise any Hollywood eyebrows these days, in certain post-Communist Eastern European countries you can find on the map only with the help of a magnifying glass, seeing two women kiss on-screen is nothing short of a cinematic revolution.

Andrea Weiss’s 1992 claim that “[l]esbian images in the cinema have been and continue to be virtually invisible” (1) may have lost force in the past decade which brought us such complex celluloid portrayals of sapphic desire as were Wachowsky Bros.’ Bound or Lynch’s Mulholland Drive[1]; the decade in which the little Swedish film Show Me Love by Lukas Moodysson was the Swedish Oscar entry despite (& because?) of its lesbian subject(s), the same decade which witnessed the production of the first lesbian-only TV series, The L Word. Yet, Weiss’s assertion can safely be applied to Croatian (as well as ex-Yugoslav) cinematography. It was only in 2002 that Croatian cinemagoers could finally see what the Croatian-style love that dare not speak its name looks like. Fine Dead Girls, a film by the young Croatian director Dalibor Matanić, will probably go down in the history of Croatian cinematography as the first Croatian lesbian film. In this essay I plan to prove not only that this is not a lesbian film, but also that it is a sexist, patriarchal product functioning in the same cruel cinematic tradition which (re)presents lesbians (and women) as victims, and lesbian relationship as an impossibility, even though it may no longer be depicted as an aberration and a sexual anomaly. Although the author’s sympathies evidently lie with the main two lesbian characters, the fact he exploits them (and their lesbianism) as a foil for portrayal and critique of the state of Croatian society, paradoxically proves that this film perpetuates the same patriarchal view of women it purports to condemn. This kind of representation, just as did “the lack of lesbian images (…) through the history of the cinema”, “serves an important ideological function: that of monopolizing the representation of female sexuality with images of passivity and male dominance” (Weiss 1992: 52).

How to make a lesbian movie

An argument supporting the view of this film as a lesbian film would be audience response. For the first time in the history of Croatian film the theme of lesbianism is tackled and the word itself uttered on-screen; moreover, a lesbian couple is in the center of the narrative. These facts alone were enough for Fine Dead Girls to be dubbed a lesbian movie both by the mainstream (presumably straight) audience and the minority lesbian subculture, starved for some homemade lesbian-friendly images, or any kind of visibility. However, the film touches upon lesbianism very superficially, revolving neither around the characters’ (attitude towards their) sexuality nor their relationship, as a “real” lesbian film would do. If this film, on the other hand, were a critique of society’s treatment of lesbians, it would examine different ways of discriminating lesbians[2], doubly targeted as women and a sexual minority. Instead, this is a film about the society that crushes and destroys those in the position of least power, without ever questioning the limits of its influence or allowing any room for (female/feminist) resistance. Consequently, the film submits lesbians/women to the same kind of violence and exploitation particular to patriarchal society, misrepresenting the post-war Croatian lesbian subculture for extra effect.

Another question is: can a product of mainstream Croatian culture – by the very fact it needs funding and distribution by the same culture – escape the homophobic and sexist ideology of the society that has borne it?

A recipe for tragedy

The title of the film immediately suggests its genre (drama), the sex of the main protagonists and their wretched fate. Just as a spectator of a Greek tragedy, the member of the audience can but wait to see how the characters will meet their death, symbolic or literal. The film poster brings more emblematic information: it is done in three colors (red, black and white), the main upper segment (black and white photo) showing a close-up of two female faces melting into each other, eyes wide open in shock and fear, staring at the observer. The two faces are distorted by horizontal lines running across them resembling window blinds or a bad TV transmission, giving an impression of enclosure, inescapability, imprisonment. The photograph is framed in bright red and the lower part of the poster holds the movie title in large black and white letters, on red background. This relatively minimalist and simple poster almost reads as an advertisement for a horror movie. The loud contrast of colors and the frightened female gaze from behind the horizontal bars intimate tragedy and violence. Not a minor concern for a lesbian/feminist critic would certainly be the way these two female (lesbian) faces are depicted as dissolving into oneness, reminding of the now outmoded interpretation of homosexuality which insists on sameness as the principle of homosexual attraction, implying the immature, narcissistic desire. This view is also supported by the fact two main actresses/characters cannot be distinguished from each other on this photograph (it is also possible that it is a doubly exposed face of the “surviving” one, Iva). One can imagine it was not the director designing promo material, yet he was without doubt the one to approve it, thus I will use this as another argument for my criticism of his depiction of lesbians (and women).

Mise(ry) en scène

The other setting where the framing narrative takes place is the evil ex-landlady’s apartment, which is (due to the blue filter, but also to the lack of light, cramped space and the old massive furniture), although very much contrasted to it, just as depressing as Iva’s home. Here we are immediately introduced with the aspect of cinematography visually marking this film perhaps more than any other element; the frequent use of a range of uncommon (overhead, high and low angle) shots. Contrary to Monaco’s assured claim that “high-angle shots diminish the importance of the subject while long-angle shots emphasize its power” (1981: 164), rather than investing the subjects with power or divesting them of it, their usage in this film serves to distort the perspective, like a mirror room at an amusement park, yet with little to amuse here. Extreme camera angles serve to emphasize the deformity and perversity of these “subjects”, many of them who are already caricatured, hypertrophied embodiments of certain social issues, and of the narrated world, twisting the space and point of view, disorienting the spectator. It is important to note that these angles prevail in portrayal of the events in the building where the main body of the flashback takes place, associating this setting with a sense of disturbance.

A feminist autopsy

The main story, as I have mentioned, is Iva’s flashback on the events taking place three years earlier; the trigger for her recounting of the story is the kidnapping of her young son; she tells the story to the police inspector who has come to investigate the case. There is plenty of room for cultural and feminist criticism here – Iva reacted with passivity and silence when she was verbally abused, beaten and raped, as well as when her girlfriend was killed; her story only gets told when her son is in danger. Not only that she is finally willing to contact the police, she also displays aggression and has to be held back by the policemen, something completely out of her meek and mild character we encounter in the flashback. Feminist criticism, but also the criticism of anyone with half a brain, will obviously attack this stereotype and myth of a woman who herself can/will suffer any kind of violence (because she cannot successfully counter it physically, or remain a sympathetic character if she attempts to[4]), but when her child is threatened, her motherly instincts will give her superhuman strength and motivation (and justification for aggression). This is the first instance we notice the director playing upon the patriarchal stereotypes he will continue to perpetuate and support throughout the film’s narrative.

Abruptly moving back in time[5], the spectator is confronted with a whole new mise en scène; the first scene (unlike the spatially enclosed framing narrative) takes place outside, the colors are much brighter and warmer, the light softer. The colors are intensified both due to the contrast with the blue tones of the previous part of the film and the yellow filter here used. This may suggest a certain romanticized view of the past, but also a life more “real”, since diegetic sounds are more pronounced (traffic, train siren etc.), contrasting the ominous Twin Peaksian score of the first part[6]. Another contrast we encounter is in Iva’s appearance: here she is dressed casually, wearing no make-up, her earrings are sphere-shaped, girlish, making her look like a typical student, which she is. Her girlfriend Marija is androgynous; her clothes, hairdo and general appearance suggest gender ambivalence and assertiveness the demure Iva lacks.

Critiquing the critique

The girls move into the building which, we are to understand, is an allegory of Croatian society; each of the tenants we (and the girls) are gradually introduced to represents a different social type, bringing into the narrative issues relevant for the Croatian sociopolitical context[7]. Nationalism (and the violence related to it) is a prominent issue in the film: the first shot of the building when girls arrive shows the Croatian flag hanging out of the window. It is embodied in the character of an ex-Croatian defender who still wears the uniform, shoots his gun and terrorizes the tenants (“only twice a week”) playing war songs, without any legal repercussions for any of his violent acts (including beating his wife). The Croatian nationalism shows its fascist face in the episode where two skinheads tie a Roma man to the train rails and leave him to be run over by the train. Hypocrisy of the Croatian society and the false morality of the Church and its followers is harshly criticized in the episodes of nuns having abortions, wife beater taking his family to the Sunday Mass, and the rapist wearing a cross around his neck. The fact no one answers for any of the crimes and violence committed against what Matanić obviously deems the weakest and the most fragile links of society (ethnic minorities and women) is the critique of the same society, its corrupted nature, inefficacy and impotence of the apparatus which should be protecting them.

Homophobia, as a very potent and relevant social issue is, strangely enough, not in the focus of the film. It is certainly important that Matanić tackles the problems of (post-war) nationalism, Catholic church’s hypocrisy and patriarchy (in the form of domestic violence), yet putting lesbians in the spotlight and the title of the film for the very first time without giving them a proper political treatment, and reducing them to yet another site of his social critique feels like cheating, a promise unfulfilled. Although “identity is strategically essential to the struggle of the oppressed groups” (Wilton 1995: 42), not only that lesbianism is not presented as a political problem, but the whole political (and not only private) Croatian context regarding the subject is completely effaced in order to victimize our heroines further. The fact that Croatia is still a deeply patriarchal and sexist society makes the lesbian practice a site for identity formation, which threatens the same order. It is exactly because of this potential threat of self-identification and self-naming that, in order to remain sympathetic to the Croatian spectator, Iva and Marija are not allowed to name themselves lesbians. The positive term, lesbian, is actually never heard. The only naming authority is the one on the outside, which uses the term “dyke” and similar derogatory expressions. What is more, the two protagonists treat their own sexual practice in the same way society and Matanić want them to: as something accidental, what Weiss calls “‘happen to be gay’ syndrome”, which need and should not have any broader implication for society at large, as “there is no gay culture, identity, or history beyond the bedroom” (1992: 63).

The compulsory heterosexualization of lesbian relationships

Perhaps this is why, on the visual level, the author tried to avoid the butch/femme stereotype, still prevailing as the interpretation of lesbianism in Croatia[8]. The dynamics of this lesbian relationship, however, resembles the heterosexual matrix in the way Marija takes on the stereotypical masculine role: she financially supports Iva who is still studying, she does the talking with the landlady, she confronts the landlady and takes steps to protect Iva and herself from Daniel’s intrusion, she takes revenge on Daniel after he rapes Iva, having previously smashed the family shop he works in. The logic of the narrative then requires that this (only) female character who refused to be victimized be punished by death. Iva’s hyper-feminine role requires passivity and silence even in the face of rape. The most incredible, manipulative and insulting episode of the film is the scene following the rape, where Iva begs the retarded Ivek not to tell Marija about it, because “she will get mad”. One would expect that a woman studying medicine, living in a capital where information and support are easily accessible, would immediately report such a crime, instead of behaving as if it were her fault, as if it were something she should be ashamed of and hide. What most resembles the stereotypical heterosexual behavior in such a situation is the fact she wants to hide it from her partner; whom exactly would Marija get mad at? Iva’s silent suffering of rape can only enrage the viewer as a blatant exploitation of the idea of feminine passivity and Matanić’s ultimate, sadistic act of victimizing the female character. If this film was set in rural parts of Croatia twenty years earlier and if the two female protagonists were not educated young women with access to the Internet, the Zagreb gay venue and/or organizations fighting for the rights of sexual minorities (of which there were three at the time of the narrative), the film would be far more convincing. As it is, it only succeeds in being manipulative and insulting, reinforcing the idea of lesbians/women as victims, in life as in art alike.

In this light one should mention that Fine Dead Girls was the 2002 Croatian candidate for Oscar® which did not get to the Oscar® nomination list, yet it won prestigious Croatian film awards and visited many an international film festival. It scares one to think what ideas about Croatia a non-native spectator (but, what is worse, the native straight spectator! (and what is the worst, the native lesbian spectator!) may get seeing this film. Although half of the characters are obviously caricatures and are not to be taken literally, certain misimpressions of Croatian society linger on. For instance, not only that one will think Croatian lesbians are doomed to solitude, silence, and, why not, death, like those of the early Hollywood movies[9], but Matanić would also make us believe abortion in Croatia is illegal[10].

Why it could not have been a musical

Somewhere at the beginning of this essay I suggested the first Croatian film tackling lesbianism would not have been produced had it not been a drama. The only reason spectator sympathizes with the two lesbian characters is because they are women, because they are victims, because they keep their sexuality private. Would a regular Croatian moviegoer/citizen shed a tear for a lesbian activist (advocating social change and a revision of existing “family” values) being raped and murdered? Would they consider a woman raising a child in a lesbian relationship (had Iva opted for this at the end of the movie) courageous, or scandalous and immoral? The point I am trying to make here is that Matanić himself (who is the creator of this universe) cannot allow for a change. The one female character who resists will die by the hand of the society (and the director!), the other dies symbolically (hence the title). Could audience handle any other kind of an ending?

From the feminist point of view, this film is a disaster. How are female characters portrayed, how do they behave? Apart from Iva and Marija whose tragic histories we know from the title and the above paragraphs, we also meet a battered housewife married to an ex-soldier, the epitome of violence and nationalist primitivism, whom she has no strength or power to leave. It seems that there are no other options for her either, although she (like our lesbians) lives in Zagreb, where there are several feminist organizations, SOS phone line and a shelter for battered women (and children). Not only that she is not trying to help herself or her children, she very much defends her abusive husband, both verbally and by the fact of remaining in the same situation. Is passivity inherent to women, or do they have to stay victims so that Matanić can criticize the society which molests them?

Another, more emancipated female character, is the building’s resident prostitute. Although she is represented rather sympathetically and not so much as a victim, the social problems related to her profession are never brought up, by her or anyone else. The fact prostitutes are not protected by the Croatian law, that they are often abused by their clients or pimps (she, conveniently, does not have one), is never mentioned. Quite the opposite, by making the prostitute the comic relief of the film, these problems are even more removed from the eyes of society. Would Croatian public be sympathetic towards a prostitute asking for her rights? Is she yet another superficially portrayed female character, a woman without (real) power who does not claim her rights, lest she be rubbed off, inside the film, or out of the script? It seems that Matanić’s critique of society is a pretty safe and a cheap one; the more demanding social issues (LGBT or prostitutes’ rights, for instance) simply could not make it into the film.

The worst female character and the evil spiritus movens of the narrative is the old landlady Olga, mother of the rapist Daniel. She is also the character with most power, as she seems to possess half of the apartments in the building (it is suggested she got hold of them illegally). Her wickedness is reflected in body and mind alike; she is a stereotypical old hag, asexual, unattractive, de-feminized. Feminist critic will be horrified at the representation of this woman as the origin of evil and the one responsible for its many manifestations, even her son’s rape of Iva, which she witnesses in silence. The monstrous matriarchal family structure (a wimp husband and the grown up son still attached to the mother) seems to be the cancer of society. Moreover, the scenes following Daniel’s death, Olga’s screaming accompanied with extreme high (overhead) angle of the camera, mark the emotional climax of the film and the beginning of the destruction of the narrative world. Following the film’s metaphorical structure, with the building representing Croatian society, Olga, as the owner of the building can be understood as the homeland Croatia itself. Her hypertrophied (desexualized) motherhood upholds patriarchy, particularly in her upbringing of a violent, emotionally retarded son. In short, she is the ultimate misogynist image and a stereotype of monstrous motherhood.

Twisting the tale

Before you decide to start a petition to destroy all copies of the film and, why not, its author, let me present you with a reading which may provide a certain relief from the oppressive suicidal thoughts this film has evoked in you, especially if you, like our heroines, are of an alternative sexual preference. As you may remember, for I have mentioned it at least half a dozen times, the flashback within the film belongs to and is narrated by Iva. This, even those among you with no education in literature will surely know, implies the use of the first-person mode of narration. This means the story told is not an objective story (which an omniscient point of view would guarantee), it is a story as seen/remembered/understood by the character retelling it. We may easily forget this fact, for the “image on the screen is simply invested with an immutable aura of validity” (Monaco 1981: 173) and makes us forget we should examine this story closely, interpret it as a manipulation of events on the part of the narrator. The “objective” part of the film is, apparently, the framing narrative, which is the only part of the film we can safely assume is the truth. What we see there is a woman who is figuratively dead, and voluntarily so. It is she who has chosen this gloomy life[11], having exchanged her body (as a wife and a mother) for the safety of a heterosexual marriage. Her life here is not presented as something she has been forced into, but rather something she chooses. She chooses not to tell her husband of her past, she chooses this heterosexual extravagant lifestyle for all the benefits it offers. Despite the blue filter and the prevailing gloom, she is very much in control of her life, hardly a helpless victim.

In the story she tells we see her as a very different character. She could be Virgin Mary herself, self-sacrificing, gentle, passive, modest, hyper-feminine. It is Iva who presents herself as such, mind you; it is how she wants to be perceived, the ideal her (the creation of which the storytelling position makes possible). If the ideal her is a helpless, victimized femme violated by the Society too monstrous, too powerful to defy, her choices will not be perceived as choices but rather as something she was forced into, excusing her and making her an object of pity rather than a subject responsible for her actions. If she presents all other women as victims of the society that destroys those who dare resist, it will justify her submissiveness further. Interestingly enough, the one likable, non-caricatured female character with some power in her story, the one whose behavior she will condone is the prostitute, perhaps for the simple reason she can identify with her, having chosen the same profession at the end of the film (her marriage is exactly that).

This interpretation would lead us to the conclusion that the evil mastermind of the narrative, the one preserving the order of the patriarchal society, is not (hold your knives!) Dalibor Matanić, nor would we need to understand the film as his view of society. It is rather the Woman who keeps retelling the myth of patriarchy, using it as an excuse for her own inertia.

This angle of analysis, you will rightfully declare, would still not make this a feminist film (with the idea that patriarchy is women’s responsibility!), alas. Still, as a critique of one woman’s endorsement of patriarchy the film leaves much more room for optimism than a view of women as a “fragile” group[12]; whom society beats, rapes, abuses and makes films about.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCE:

• Fine Dead Girls, Croatia, 2002, Dir. Dalibor Matanić
• Monaco, James. 1981. “The Language of Film. Signs and Syntax.” in How to Read a Film. The Art, Technology, Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media. New York, Oxford: OUP, 121-191.
• Rich, Adrienne. “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence” in Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 5 (Sumr 1980): 631-60.
• Russo, Vito. 1981. The Celluloid Closet. New York: Harper and Row.
• Weiss, Andrea. 1992. Vampires and Violets. New York: Penguin.
• Wilton, Tamsin. 1995. “The nature of the beast: What is a lesbian?” in Lesbian Studies: Setting an Agenda. New York: Routledge, 29-49.
• www.crowmagazine.com/intervju_matanic.htm (last accessed on the 15th Jan 2005)