"How far are you willing to go to save your only child?"
A middle class man Mladen (Nebojsa Glogovac) and his wife
Maridja (Natasa Ninkovic) are leading a decent life with their only son Nemanja
(Marko Djurovic). They aren't extravagant but they are content. Nemanja does
crib about not having a cell phone like his classmates do, but Mladen promises
him that he will get him one; only he doesn't know when and how. Fate strikes
its first blow and Nemanja is diagnosed with a terminal heart illness that could
cause fatal seizures. Unless he undergoes a critical surgery in Berlin (that
would cost the family a bomb, about 26,000 euros, not surprisingly), Nemanja could
succumb to any next seizure that comes by!
In a desperate bid to gather funds, Maridja places an ad in
the newspaper to seek help for little Nemanja. Little do they know that the ad
would invite people from various circles trying to take advantage of their
situation!
In one such test of vulnerability, after careful deliberation,
Mladen accepts a job of murdering a rich business executive. The mysterious
stranger who approaches him to do the job guarantees he would provide the
entire surgery expense as well as travel ticket charges! A tempted Mladen sets
out to do the task. But do things go as they planned? Can Mladen save Nemanja?
Plot synopses on various pages describe "Klopka" as a
psychological thriller or a noir film. Frankly, although plot wise the film may
seem to be such, it is actually a film that beneath its familiar, thriller exterior is a remarkably accurate depiction of life in the post-Milošević
Serbian society. This was the transition phase when the middle class struggled
to survive in their meagre paying State jobs, while some others moved on and
got involved in shady practises, thus making a meteoric rise to a wealthy
existence. What resulted was a wide gap between the rich and the poor. The cost for Nemanja's surgery was an
impossible to achieve amount for some, and for others it was just peanuts, even
as insignificant as to spend on useless decoration items! This is highlighted
in a shattering moment when Maridja, a school teacher takes up a job as a
private tutor in a rich girl's house while the rich girl shows off a frame
hanging on her plush mansion's wall which costs a little more than the amount
quoted by the doctor for Nemanja's surgery!
Also highlighted in some key scenes, are other traits of the period, including shielding nefarious activities with claims of
acts of patriotism. And in what is perhaps the only comical moment in the film,
a clerk at a foreign owned bank, along with his other co-workers is seen
putting on a fake smile, even when acknowledging the loan applicants'
predicament, for fear of being taken to task if they don't smile when doing their financial dealings! It goes to show how these employees were at
the mercy of their foreign based employers who made their way into a society
that needed revival.
These themes and a backdrop against which the story is set
make "Klopka" stand out to a large extent. Despite treading familiar areas in
the first forty minutes into the film, before the viewer could write off the
story as being done to death, "Klopka" manages not to sink into predictable territory
by introducing a good amount of surprising twists, some of them quite ironic
and tragic. There are moments when the narrative does brink on the edge of
contrivance, but there's nothing too extremely far-fetched or difficult to
digest so as to take away from the film. It is near impossible not to feel a slight jab when Mladen, who strikes
a pleasant acquaintance with Jelena (Anica Dobra), who comes to the same park
with her child where Mladen takes Nemanja, has to face her in one of the
most difficult and awkward moments in their lives that threatens to make one of
them lose face and change things forever.
Golubovic gives his film a rather gritty, realistic
feel by capturing a grim, scarcely populated suburban neighbourhood using
minimal filming techniques like handheld camera, a slightly grainy texture and a bluish tinge to the
picture. The sound is mostly ambient and diegetic and the music is sparse
except for a melancholic score that plays during important moments in the film.
In spite of a rather sensitive theme at its centre, "Klopka" refrains from going into
the melodramatic territory. It is the performances of Natasa Ninkovic and Nebojsa
Glogovac that go a long way in holding the film together. The latter, in fact,
delivers an understated, complex performance as a vulnerable husband torn
between morals and duty to his family. It is a commendable display of a moral dilemma and it is very convincingly done. Mladen who appears
retrained and composed for the most part exhibits fleeting instances of
volatile emotion. It is only towards the end that he breaks down, exposing his
weak, helpless human side, in a powerful scene in which he echoes the feeling
that most of us experience at some point in our life and can instantly identify
with; a feeling that is very much the essence of the story being told. The scene in question is a poignant, tearful moment, in which he pours
out to his wife: "As a child, I wished and imagined life to be like a film which you could
rewind and start over". Didn't we all?
Score: 8/10
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