Honeymoons (Paskaljevic, 2009): Serbia, Albania

Reviewed by Skylar Harrison. Viewed at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Metro 4 Theatre.

Honeymoons, directed by Goran Paskaljevic, is disappointing in crucial aspects that could potentially make a great film: narrative, acting, and the film’s conclusion. There, in fact, was an audible groan that rumbled throughout the audience when the film ended. The audience felt cheated in the time they had wasted in watching a film with virtually no conclusion or artistic ambition to compensate for the weak plot.

Honeymoons follows two couples and their completely separate storylines; the only linking factors are their dramatic attempts to cross the border at Hungary and Italy and a bomb that kills two soldiers in Kosovo, which plays on the news in both couples’ different settings. The two storylines are like Legos for children, just stacked next to each other; there was no attempt to weave the stories together. It was as if watching two films, considering by the time it switched back to the other storyline, after long sequences, the audience was disinterested.

Vera (Jelena Trkulja) and Marko (Nebojsa Milovanovic) are a newly married couple who venture back to Vera’s hometown for a family wedding. Tensions are heightened as Marko’s political views differ from the families, and Vera’s ailing and bitter father stirs up trouble with the wedding party. Maylinda (Nirela Naska) and Nik (Jozef Shiroka), the other couple, share a dramatic relationship; Nik’s brother and Maylinda’s fiancé has gone missing years before, making Nik and Maylinda’s desire for each other conflicting and convoluted with the past. Nik and Maylinda, along with Nik’s mother and father, also voyage to a wedding. It is there that Nik and Maylinda admit their love to each other and decide to flee to Italy, abandoning their parents.

The combination of poor acting and overwritten dialogue was the downfall of the film. An audience member could have closed their eyes the entire film and still be completely aware of what was going on—everything is said, nothing is shown. When we first meet Vera, she runs into a neighbor who begs her to tell her husband to stop playing his violin. Vera then, for a good thirty second, explains that it is not a violin, but a cello. We get it. That whole half page of dialogue should have been cut, as the next shot is of Marko sitting with his cello; it might have even made for a good laugh.

Although the concept of a handsome, charismatic man falling for his assumedly dead brother’s fiancé is quite intriguing, the plot falls short from the lack of chemistry between Nik and Maylinda. One moment they are across the room from one another without eye contact and the next they are fleeing to Italy together? Once on the boat heading toward Italy, Nik asks Maylinda to smile because she “never smiles.” Maylinda then bursts out laughing, completely betraying her complex and grieving character in an unconvincing, cheesy, what should be “breakthrough scene.” In this moment, the acting is uncomfortably poor.

The film does, however, shed a poignant light on the struggle of immigration and the tensions caused  by foreign war. In one of the closing scenes, Maylinda’s performance as she is separated from her lover in Italy is chillingly candid; one cannot help but feel just as lost and helpless as she is. Bujar Lako’s performance as Rok, the father of Nik, is worth a mention, as he perfectly captures an old Albanian man dealing with his grieving, high strung, and emotional wife, and he adds great subtle humor to the drama.

It’s a shame that a screenplay potentially filled with profound themes including class, politics, grieving, and forbidden love was lost behind the clutter of unbelievable acting and overwritten dialogue.