A STRANGER

Mostar is a divided city – indeed one without actual physical walls, but with consequences for those that cross the invisible ethnic borders between Croatians, Bosnians and Serbs. Slavko’s Bosnian friend dies unexpectedly and the trip to his burial service, which should actually be a matter of course, becomes a political act fraught with danger for the old man. Shot with a hand camera, the film literally swings back and forth between sinister, at times even absurd menace and depression, convincingly conveying Slavko’s paranoid desperation. Reinforced by the film’s sound design, the psychological discord and the burden of having to align one’s self with a specific side reach an intensity that stays with the viewer long after the credits have rolled.