The Visitor - Yugoslavia

16mm Film - The Visitor - Yugoslavia 1973

Script and Direction: Živko Nikolić

Camera: Slavko Vukčević

The backdrop of the story is a Yugoslav mountain village. Apparently motionless old people sit in shady doorways. Women in black appear. They hurry with increasing urgency toward a destination still unknown to the viewer. In a large room, many people are gathered around a dead man. Two men wash him and dress him in festive clothing. The women sit silently in a semicircle behind the bier. Among the men, slivovitz is passed around. A photographer arrives and groups the women in the prescribed order and photographs them with the deceased. The ritual form loosens up. Conversations grow louder. They stop when the lamentation at the cemetery swells to an increasingly powerful dirge. At the height of the lament, bells begin to ring. A loud interjection ends the ritual ceremony. In the shadow of the doorways sit...