Clip (Maja Milos, 2012): Serbia

Reviewed  by Joakim Svensson, AFI Festival 2012.

This film focuses on the tough life of Jasna, a love seeking teenage girl in the poor suburbs of Belgrade, Serbia. She observers the world around her by filming parts of her life with her mobile phone camera. Together with the difficult family situation with her dying father, her life takes a rather difficult turn when the boy of her dreams comes into it and hurts her as much as it gives her meaning. The film is very graphical and there has been no compromise to portray the reality of her situation. One can argue that the very raw scenes in this movie are to much at times, i disagree. After listening to the Q&A with the director as she explained what was needed to be done to tell the story in its true form i was convinced that the film would not have worked so well without it. The whole point is to make a splash, to prove a point, Clip does more than that, it raises questions, answers some of them and most importantly; makes us care on a different level, on a real level. The acting is phenomenal and the performance of the beautiful lead actress, Isidora Simijonovic, feels so real that the screen becomes a big window into an emotional and very captivating look on a some what regular girl’s life in a very difficult situation. The story needed to be told and we needed to see it through the eyes of Jasna, the one hurting the most. You feel like you need to help her, but you are reminded that it is why the film is so good and why the female director, Maja Milos, shines a very honest light on a increasing trend amongst young women in that part of the world. The cinematography in this film is difficult to explain in just a few words, but the fresh ways of showing us what Jasna sees through her phone adds a very important spice to the film in its whole. Clip is not for the faint of heart, you have to have a pretty tough skin to sit through it and come out happy that you did at the end, but if you know you can handle it you should see it, for Jasna.