Auch für die jüngere, während des Bürgerkriegs aufgewachsene Generation von Filmemachern aus dem ehemaligen Jugoslawien bleibt diese Schreckensepoche so lebensbestimmend wie für ihre Eltern. Heute könnte jeder in Serbien wissen, was der weiße Kühllaster geladen hat, den der arbeitslose Vlada während der NATO-Bombardements von Kosovo nach Belgrad durch ein zutiefst zerrüttetes Land steuert. Doch kein erhobener Zeigefinger, keine billige Parteinahme. Stattdessen eine physiognomisch prägnante Reise ans Ende der Nacht hinein in Verstrickung und Mitverantwortung. Glavonić: „Das Kino muss, wie Pasolini sagte, zu den jungen Faschisten sprechen, ihre nationalistische Mythomanie aufbrechen.“ (Stephan Settele)
In Anwesenheit von Ognjen Glavonić.
In 1999, during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, several trucks loaded with corpses were driven all across the country, one at a time; their destinations: rivers and lakes where the cars and bodies got sunk, to erase every possible trace of what amounts to massacres. It’s never openly stated what Vlada is transporting on that one particular haul from somewhere in Kosovo to Belgrade – things are suggested, but that’s all; still, if one had seen Ognjen Glavonić’s previous film, the 2016 documentary DUBINA DVA, little is left to imagination. Well, not quite: Nothing horrifying, repulsive, disturbing is ever shown in either film – the mass shootings, piles of corpses are in your head only. TERET, in fact, plays more like an ultra-minimalist action thriller. Suspense derives solely from Vlada’s obvious anxieties, the sheer amount of time things take and the sameness of the landscapes – something will give, that much is clear, but when and why: who knows. If you drive dozens of corpses through the country something must snap at some point – something will happen. Really? Maybe humans are more apt at denying evil than we like to believe with our good liberal souls? Let’s say by way of recommendation that a certain official Serbia tried hard to see that TERET would not get made. (Olaf Möller)
