Landscapes of Resistance review – honest attempt to grapple with Yugoslavian history

Sonja Vujanović’s testimony forms almost the entirety of Landscape of Resistance. Speaking slowly but lucidly, she recounts details of her experience in the lead-up to and during World War II in what is now Serbia – first as a young communist, then a partizan fighter under Tito’s army, then imprisonment in various camps, including Auschwitz. Overlaying this testimony are images of landscapes – the very locations she is referring to – that gradually dissolve into one another, endlessly thrumming and shape-shifting.

It is fascinating to see how Sonja (herself the grandmother of the film’s co-writer Ana Vujanović) articulates her lifelong struggle. In her testimony, she places herself as part of a wider fight against fascism in Europe and of a wider project of socialism that, in the years immediately after World War II, still seemed like a utopian possibility for many in Yugoslavia.

Beyond being a recording of Sonja’s testimony, Landscapes of Resistance also seeks to ask whether the history of a landscape, seeped into the earth, can speak to us today, and what lessons from the past might we apply as a result, particularly in the context of a modern-day Serbia and a post-Yugoslav space.

In the 1990s, Yugoslavia’s collapse was fuelled by a rise in base nationalism and fascism, and the fire stoked in that nationalism has not subsided. Serbia’s current president, Aleksandar Vučić, may dress himself up as a centrist technocrat, but is a hardline nationalist at his heart, having spoken of killing 100 Muslims for every Serb killed in the '90s, with a long track record of authoritarian behaviour, including alleged involvement in the 1999 murder of journalist Slavko Ćuruvija. Landscapes of Resistance engages closely with the dual narratives of both the rise of fascism in the ‘40s and the rise in fascist governments over the last 10, 20, 30 years. The links between past and present are never far apart.

As partners, Ana Vujanović and director Marta Popivoda also contextualise their struggles as LGBT+ people in Serbia in parallel with Sonja’s struggles in World War II (despite noticeable progress in the last decade, including a lesbian Prime Minister hand-picked by Vučić for pinkwashing purposes, progress in Serbia has been indeterminably slow). Landscapes of Resistance presents an intellectually honest attempt to grapple with the legacy of history in the former Yugoslavia, one which has been abused and misappropriated within post-Yugoslav cinema (most obviously in last year’s Dara of Jasenovac – a death camp story turned into theme park Oscar bait).

Yet, there are a few details in Landscapes of Resistance that do not fully resolve. The film’s willingness to draw such a direct connection between Sonja’s struggles and that of the filmmakers reads as somewhat rose-tinted: the partizans may have taken part in one of the most valiant and incredible war efforts in history, but that does not mean the acts themselves were valiant: this is something that Sonja is cognisant of, but it is unclear if the filmmakers are too (it is also notable that the partizans themselves were not exactly LGBT+ allies).

The need to constantly see ourselves in history is, I think, an emotional trick we play on ourselves that ultimately serves very little in modern day questions of oppression and resistance. Landscapes of Resistance seeks to learn from the past but makes the mistake of charging headfirst into it in search of answers for today, in the process losing sight of what gives the present its own unique set of issues

Landscapes of Resistance was screened as part of the BFI Film Festival 2021. A UK release date is yet to be announced.