Odumiranje

After several years in Belgrade Janko returns
to his almost deserted native village in the
mountains. His widowed mother is beside
herself with joy and hopes that her son will
finally stay, get married and settle down.
Janko has other plans however: He wants
to move to Zurich and start out anew. All
he needs is money, for which he's prepared
to go to any lengths, even if that means
selling the land inherited from his father,
the latter's burial site. ODUMIRANJE
(WITHERING) represents Miloš Pušić' film
adaptation of the correspondent and highly
successful stage play, whose author Dušan
Spasojević also penned the script for this
film. Wonderful footage of a virgin-like
landscape and vivid characters, captured
by the sensitive camera work of Aleksandar
Ramadanović, depict the inhabitants of a
village on its last legs and its youth, intent
on leaving behind values of old and a
modest existence for pastures new.
What starts out as a hopeful ode to local
folk traditions soon evolves into a serious,
almost tragic work on rural exodus and
generational conflict, raising the question
as to which is more important, land or
an independent, fulfilled existence. In the
course of the nineties an estimated 300,000
people left Serbia. WITHERING can be
understood both in the sense of a fading
away as well as simply destructive, thus
providing this film with the perfect title.