Djordje Milosavljevic's Mehanizam is a brutal cat-and-mouse thriller set in the grim, wintry countryside of contemporary Yugoslavia. It follows the paths three unrelated characters (a taxi driver, a schoolteacher and an assassin) and charts the terrible fallout of their chance meeting. In its basic workings, it resembles certain "torture-porn" genre pictures, such as Ruggereo Deodato's The House at the Edge of the Park: innocents are trapped by a vicious maniac and ruthlessly abused. Mehanizam, however, never stoops to the voyeuristic titillation in which such films usually wallow. It is, in fact, a message picture, a moral parable dressed up in the wolves' clothing of psychological horror.
Basically, the entire film consists of a debate between the assassin, Mak, and his captives. As played by Nikola Kojo, Mak is a gleeful nihilist who proudly and loudly embodies "The Mechanism," his coldly Darwinian vision of social morality. In order to emphasize his bloated self-importance and to clarify his function within the film's didactic scheme, Mak dresses in a snazzy, Hollywood-gangster pimp suit and spouts an absurdly convoluted and articulate stream of philosophical drivel for most of the movie's running time. Kojo's performance is the film's thematic centerpiece, and he's mesmerizing. Alternately clownish, terrifying and insufferable, Mak provides the film with most of its desperate, compulsive tension.
Mak's nemesis is the cabdriver, a nearly mute ex-soldier named Janko (Andrej Sepetkovski) who simply refuses to cooperate with anything going on around him. Although the cabbie never articulates a position in opposition to Mak's, he becomes the de-facto stand-in for "the other side". In Janko's refusal to engage with the world's evil, Mak sees something tantamount to treason: a denial and a diminishment of Mak's own worldly power. So, Mak decides to teach Janko the futility of opposition. The Mechanism, you see, doesn't permit escape.
Once this set-up is established, Mak and Janko "battle" back and forth. Their struggle consists of Mak talking and beating while Janko contemplates his navel. Ivana Mihic's young schoolteacher, Snezana, is caught in the middle. Although she seems to play a secondary role in the film's philosophical architecture, she is the closest thing we get to a heroic protagonist and the only character with whom we are permitted to identify. The movie, however, isn't interested in Snezana as a human being. Instead, it seems that we are meant to see her as the classic sheep, completing the triangle defined by Mak's wolf and Janko's Christlike shepherd. Snezana's superficial frailty conceals extraordinary strength, and she is therefore Mak's logical prey, an "unawakened" version of Janko, Mak's natural enemy.
The film's action follows these three around across a barren patch of dismal farm country as Snezana tries to outwit Mak, and Mak tries to get Janko to do something. In the process, Mak does bad stuff. He threatens and abuses his captives. He tortures and murders random strangers. Janko, meanwhile, refuses to engage with the situation. This refusal and the filmmaker's interest in it eventually sabotage the film.
In the film's earliest scenes, we empathize equally with Janko and with Snezana. We feel for them as they struggle to cope with the hell into which they're so unjustly plunged. We watch for any sign of hope, any slip in Mak's control of the situation. This is when the film really works, modulating suspense masterfully, so that we dangle helpless on the slimmest chance of escape, then yanking us back into agonized captivity, over and over again. Eventually, though, we see that Snezana is doing all the heavy lifting. And soon after that, we realize that the filmmaker's aren't interested in her plight. Snezana isn't permitted to accomplish anything so long as Janko remains inactive, and Janko remains resolutely inactive no matter what. At this point, we give up hope, and the suspense dissolves.
At things progressed, or rather failed to, I became angry at the film and its makers. I was bothered not by the violent bleakness of story, but by the film's disrespect for its own characters and its pretentious moral high-handedness. If the central argument had been a little more intellectually challenging, I might have been willing to go along for the ride, but the script never rises above a basic presentation of its points. As philosophy, it isn't so much an exploratory debate as a simplistic series of oppositions and restatements, with a lot of baroque filigree courtesy of Mak along the way.
For what it's worth, the central performances are very strong (with the possible exception of Septkovski's Janko, and he did the best he could, under the circumstances). Kojo's Mak is entertaining as hell, and Ivana Mihic is so astounding that I might be willing to recommend the film for her performance alone. What's more, the photography and cinematography are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the wide vistas and bleached-out colors of the wintry Yugoslavian countryside. The tension never flags and the slow, methodical pacing nicely matches Mak's muscular stride. In spite of my vitriol, I can't deny that there's a lot to admire here. By any measure, Mehanizam is a tough and crafty little horror-thriller. If the filmmakers had a bit more faith in their characters, it might have been something great.
Basically, the entire film consists of a debate between the assassin, Mak, and his captives. As played by Nikola Kojo, Mak is a gleeful nihilist who proudly and loudly embodies "The Mechanism," his coldly Darwinian vision of social morality. In order to emphasize his bloated self-importance and to clarify his function within the film's didactic scheme, Mak dresses in a snazzy, Hollywood-gangster pimp suit and spouts an absurdly convoluted and articulate stream of philosophical drivel for most of the movie's running time. Kojo's performance is the film's thematic centerpiece, and he's mesmerizing. Alternately clownish, terrifying and insufferable, Mak provides the film with most of its desperate, compulsive tension.
Mak's nemesis is the cabdriver, a nearly mute ex-soldier named Janko (Andrej Sepetkovski) who simply refuses to cooperate with anything going on around him. Although the cabbie never articulates a position in opposition to Mak's, he becomes the de-facto stand-in for "the other side". In Janko's refusal to engage with the world's evil, Mak sees something tantamount to treason: a denial and a diminishment of Mak's own worldly power. So, Mak decides to teach Janko the futility of opposition. The Mechanism, you see, doesn't permit escape.
Once this set-up is established, Mak and Janko "battle" back and forth. Their struggle consists of Mak talking and beating while Janko contemplates his navel. Ivana Mihic's young schoolteacher, Snezana, is caught in the middle. Although she seems to play a secondary role in the film's philosophical architecture, she is the closest thing we get to a heroic protagonist and the only character with whom we are permitted to identify. The movie, however, isn't interested in Snezana as a human being. Instead, it seems that we are meant to see her as the classic sheep, completing the triangle defined by Mak's wolf and Janko's Christlike shepherd. Snezana's superficial frailty conceals extraordinary strength, and she is therefore Mak's logical prey, an "unawakened" version of Janko, Mak's natural enemy.
The film's action follows these three around across a barren patch of dismal farm country as Snezana tries to outwit Mak, and Mak tries to get Janko to do something. In the process, Mak does bad stuff. He threatens and abuses his captives. He tortures and murders random strangers. Janko, meanwhile, refuses to engage with the situation. This refusal and the filmmaker's interest in it eventually sabotage the film.
In the film's earliest scenes, we empathize equally with Janko and with Snezana. We feel for them as they struggle to cope with the hell into which they're so unjustly plunged. We watch for any sign of hope, any slip in Mak's control of the situation. This is when the film really works, modulating suspense masterfully, so that we dangle helpless on the slimmest chance of escape, then yanking us back into agonized captivity, over and over again. Eventually, though, we see that Snezana is doing all the heavy lifting. And soon after that, we realize that the filmmaker's aren't interested in her plight. Snezana isn't permitted to accomplish anything so long as Janko remains inactive, and Janko remains resolutely inactive no matter what. At this point, we give up hope, and the suspense dissolves.
At things progressed, or rather failed to, I became angry at the film and its makers. I was bothered not by the violent bleakness of story, but by the film's disrespect for its own characters and its pretentious moral high-handedness. If the central argument had been a little more intellectually challenging, I might have been willing to go along for the ride, but the script never rises above a basic presentation of its points. As philosophy, it isn't so much an exploratory debate as a simplistic series of oppositions and restatements, with a lot of baroque filigree courtesy of Mak along the way.
For what it's worth, the central performances are very strong (with the possible exception of Septkovski's Janko, and he did the best he could, under the circumstances). Kojo's Mak is entertaining as hell, and Ivana Mihic is so astounding that I might be willing to recommend the film for her performance alone. What's more, the photography and cinematography are gorgeous, taking full advantage of the wide vistas and bleached-out colors of the wintry Yugoslavian countryside. The tension never flags and the slow, methodical pacing nicely matches Mak's muscular stride. In spite of my vitriol, I can't deny that there's a lot to admire here. By any measure, Mehanizam is a tough and crafty little horror-thriller. If the filmmakers had a bit more faith in their characters, it might have been something great.
