GLAS

Conflict with the school management proves unavoidable when, during a drama rehearsal, he describes the legend of Immaculate Conception as “nonsense”. His classmates start to talk behind the back of this newcomer who refuses to pray before meals: could he possibly be a Muslim? Goran grows angrier by the day: at the double standards of his roommates, who secretly read pornographic magazines and yet praise the virtues of abstinence, at himself, and also at the teachers who urge the youths not to go astray. Conformity, subtly enforced, is regarded here as a matter of course. The hothouse-like pressure of missionary zeal is carried out by means of joyous gospel songs instead of baroque sermons, to a backdrop of modern architecture suffused with light as opposed to gloomy cloisters. 

The centrepiece of Ognjen Sviličić's fourth feature film is formed not by dogma but instead the banal normality with which it is shared by the majority. Goran's reluctant path towards rebellion is dissected with empathetic observation. He is a person who, though unaware of what he wants, knows exactly what he does not want. Or is he perhaps not the only nonconformist? BB