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Director's Statement
The idea for the story of REQUIEM FOR Mrs. J originates from the intimate acquaintance with a woman who, it seems, embodies a typical victim of the transition process in Serbia. She is a modest, quiet woman, who avoids interacting with people.
Mrs J. Is feeling hopeless without a job or redundancy pay, without a husband and has no desire to leave her apartment. She is perplexed by the strange occurrence at the parking lot in front of her apartment building. Feeling unwanted and rejected by her family, Mrs. J finds parts of an old family gun and decides to assemble it.
The film deals with one of the painful and unavoidable issues in Eastern Europe – social transition and economic crisis. The new political and economic system is altering the old face of socialism, bringing big changes in the value system, which inevitably leads, as in this case, to total identity crisis.
REQUIEM FOR MRS. J is a dark comedy about the transition which eats its own children,. People have always worked hard and yet failed to cope with the age of transition, where corruption, bureaucracy and double moral standards rule. After 20 years in an economically and morally devastated post-war Serbia, these people have no hope left. They have lost the will to adjust, only to be lest confused and drained. The only transition they perceive as salvation is the one to the “other world”.
However, in Serbia bureaucracy and corruption make not only life difficult, but also death. as well, Given this, transition to the other world is slow and unknown; just like searching for a lost document lost at the administration system counter. This topic is universal, as well as the destiny of Mrs. J, which can easily be experienced in other countries affected by the global economic crisis.
This gives the film a much broader dimension.
This is a satirical black comedy on the subject of the difficult social and psychological state of the people in Serbia today. Their lives are often tragi-comic and absurd. While living in a time of social transition and economic crisis is complicated dying is even more complicated.