Cinema
Don't Look Back, My Son
Ne okreći se, sine
Branko Bauer · 1956
Synopsis
Occupied Zagreb. The engineer Neven Novak, a resistance fighter, escapes from the train taking prisoners to the Jasenovac camp. Hidden in the city, he learns from his former friend Vera that his son Zoran is alive, placed in a boarding school run by the regime where children are indoctrinated. He has almost no friends left to count on, a former comrade who has become an Ustasha officer denounces him, and he tries to take the child back in order to reach the partisans with him.
Context
Produced by Jadran film and released on 16 July 1956, it runs for one hundred and eleven minutes. The screenplay is by Bauer and Arsen Diklić, the photography by Branko Blažina, the music by Bojan Adamič. The plot is loosely inspired by Carol Reed's Odd Man Out, and the scene that gives the film its title by Bambi. It brought the intimate, urban war film into Croatian cinema; critics have appreciated the atmosphere of occupied Zagreb and the depth of the characters, villains included. The Il Cinema Ritrovato festival in Bologna has shown it in an archive print.
Who it is for
One hundred and eleven minutes, in Serbo-Croatian. It helps to know what the Ustasha state was and what children were taught there.
Prizes and reception
Gold for direction and for male performance at Pula in 1956; the film that made its director one of the most respected directors in Yugoslavia.
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