CHICKEN ELECTIONS

The documentary by Goran Radovanović opens with black-and-white footage of reports on the commissioning of Serbia’s fi rst mobile-telephony network, celebrated at the time as symbolic of progress and prosperity. Cut to the present day: a small village somewhere in rural Serbia. Mobiles are no longer anything special, but otherwise little has changed in the region. Reports on the upcoming parliamentary elections drone from the radio while the local traffi c policeman tries to teach his old grandmother how to use a mobile phone. Glimpses of this old lady, who lives a lonely life on a remote farm, become the red thread running through the fi lm with its snapshot-like portraits of everyday life in the tiny community. There’s the grocer’s shop the men visit to talk about money and politics. Or the postman who delivers on his moped the ballot papers for the forthcoming elections. The policeman who stops cars as he fancies. The school with a handful of children in the overlarge classroom. The pub in which something approaching merriment occasionally arises. And the recurrent visits to the old peasant woman: Her matter-of-fact inventory of aches and pains delivered to the local doctor, her worries about increasing thievery confided in the village priest. He at least has a simple explanation to offer: “That’s the way we Serbs are.” Doing without any kind of voice-over commentary for a fi lm which alternates between cheerful and melancholic, Radovanović observes life in a village where a change of government is little more than a far-away news item, but where the people remain hopeful that change will come.