Clip (2012)
Director: Maja Milos
Country: Serbia
Runtime: 1 hour, 38 minutes
Clip
is not another ‘coming-of-age’ story about the complexities of
adolescence. Miloš has made an honest and non-judgmental portrait of
teenagers caught in sexual and social turmoil. Sexually explicit and
emotionally disturbing, it goes beyond borders and even further. Jasna
is a beautiful girl in her mid-teens. Disillusioned by her life in a
remote Serbian town with a dispirited mother and terminally ill father,
she opposes everyone, including herself, and goes wild, experimenting
with sex, drugs and simply killing time. But gradually, this desperate
protest helps her come to terms with painful reality. In her first
feature, Maja Miloš (1983) explores the disturbing state of adolescence
as bravely and honestly as her protagonist explores herself. Isidora
Simijonovic, also a debutant, gives a striking and fearless performance
full of contrasts. Together they create a highly dynamic and vibrant
portrait of wasted youth lost in the search for identity. Miloš sets
this ‘classical’ coming-of-age story in the world of contemporary
teenagers obsessed with pornographic images, virtual reality and soft
violence, meanwhile exploring the blurring boundaries between sex and
affection, simple pleasures and true love, brutality and tenderness.
Above all, Clip examines the shifting family and social values in
present-day Serbia, where the generation gaps are extreme, placing
everyone between disintegrating traditions and uncertain contemporary
morality.
