The Rab Film Festival presents two films that confront audiences with the dark sides of human nature: the acclaimed 'Three Weeks Later' by Miroslav Terzić and the Hungarian psychological thriller 'Like at Home' by Gábor Holtai.
Večernjak's critic Jelena Ružić reviewed two films screening at the Rab Film Festival, both perfectly fitting the festival's motto "Truth Needs an Audience". These are the social horror "Three Weeks Later" by Miroslav Terzić and the Hungarian black comedy "Like at Home" by Gábor Holtai, works that confront viewers with unsettling portrayals of moral decay and human isolation.
The film "Three Weeks Later" had its world premiere in Karlovy Vary and its domestic premiere in Pula, where it won three awards: for best editing, direction, and screenplay. It is a Serbian-Croatian minority production running 94 minutes. The plot follows students and their two teachers, played by Tihana Lazović and Branislav Trifunović, on a school trip taking place just three weeks after one of the students committed suicide.
When Coca, the boy who was closest to the deceased Andrija, shows up at the departure, his classmates see it as an opportunity to continue the bullying that drove Andrija to suicide. The film also stars Anđela Alavirević and Jovan Ginić.
Ružić highlights that the amount of quiet evil camouflaged as "kids' and teens' joking" is simply unbearable. Director Terzić avoids explicitness, and the most harrowing scene occurs while one of the girls scrolls through her phone, with the sounds of what the bullies are doing in the background. She behaves with psychopathic coldness and at one point says: "Come on, I'm bored", after which the group stops their torment.
The critic compares the film to Maja Miloš's "Clip," which was the last time our region saw something this devastating, but that film was full of explicit scenes. It is precisely their absence that makes Terzić's film endlessly unsettling because, as she notes, we all know something is happening, but we can't see exactly what, just like in real life. The film is inspired by true events.
Gábor Holtai's Hungarian psychological thriller "Like at Home" runs 124 minutes and has its Croatian premiere right here on Rab. The main protagonist, Rita, played by Rozi Lovas, is a woman who works in a shoe store, gets fired, has no friends, and is not in contact with her family. One day, she is kidnapped by a stranger, played by Áron Molnár, who claims she is his sister, Szilvi.
No matter how much Rita resisted, the man punished her. He gave her a diary describing all the family members and said he would let her go once her memory returned. Rita soon realizes she will have to accept the false identity, and when she sees what kind of family it is, all she wants is to escape.
Ružić describes the film as an extremely twisted and unsettling work that raises questions about the meaning and worthlessness of life, about man's eternal striving for belonging and the sweetness of power. She particularly highlights the intimate atmosphere and the set design, from which the mustiness of the apartment where most of the film takes place almost seeps through.
