DOSSIER: SECRET SERVICE IN SERBIAN CINEMA
Posted: Sep 30th 2008
Author: Dimitrije Vojnov
This essay analyzes the presentation of Secret Service in Yugoslav (and later, Serbian) Cinema. Yugoslav Cinema reluctantly dealt with this subject matter even though these agencies are of a greater interest for the local people. This essay uses four films for a case study. Their leading characters are Secret Service agents and the plots deal with their exploits. Two of these films, SB zatvara krug (The Secret Service is Closing in, 1974) and Opasan Trag (Dangerous Trail, 1984), were made in Tito\'s Yugoslavia and the regime was heavily involved in their production. Balkanska pravila (The Balkan Rules, 1997) was made during Milošević’s reign as one of the most lavish productions ever made in the region. The last one, Četvrti čovek (The Fourth Man, 2007), was made in post-Milošević Serbia, when all the legendary Secret Service bosses were either deceased or imprisoned. By analyzing these films the paper determines the strategies of how Secret Service wanted to be represented on screen, and how it was perceived by different film authors. Through their plots the essay analyzes the presentation of national security, politics and, above all, of different public enemies. Within the presentations of enemies we can determine the prevalent anxieties of Serbian society, whether in the shape of the unnamed emigrant secret society from The Secret Service is Closing in, Albanian separatist movement of Dangerous Trail, Croatian Titoists with heinous nationalist plot of The Balkan Rules or corrupt parts of Secret Service itself in The Fourth Man.
2007 - 2010 Novi kadrovi, supported by Open Society Institute New York, and SCP Pro Helvetia Beograd, website by Breve