It Rains in My Village

Eva Ras

Aleksandar Petrović's It Rains in My Village is a strangely compelling adaptation of Dostoyevsky's Demons (aka The Possessed) set in the now defunct nation of Yugoslavia. You don't need to be familiar with the (very long) novel to appreciate the Serbian director's 1968 effort since the film is very loose in its adaptation of what is my favorite book. Suffice to say, Petrovicć's thematic intentions align with that of the Russian master in that It Rains in My Village is a critique of revolutionary socialism. Tito and his regime were perceived as relatively benign in the West in 1968 due to Yugoslavia non-alignment with the Soviet bloc, but Petrović's film stands as a middle fingered salute to Tito and his minions. As in Demons, a nihilistic adherence to Party doctrine brings death and chaos to a rural village.

The backwardness of the village is immediately established in It Rains in My Village. A band arrives on bicycles to play at a wedding, but a female member of the band is sent packing in order to kowtow to local custom. The village is dirty and primitive. Most of the men seem under employed. Roaming pigs, ostensibly herded by the film's main character Trisa (Ivan Palüch), are the main traffic. There is a mute and crazed girl named Goca who functions as an unpaid sex worker for local laborers. Trisa hangs at the one lane bowling alley and pub where he is often the butt of Joska's (Mija Aleksić) teasings. Joska goads Trisa into marrying Goca with predictably tragic results.

At this point, the real villain arrives in the form of Reza (Annie Girardot), a sophisticated teacher with an urban background. She is also a painter and soon enlists the clueless Trisa as her model and boy toy. However, the audience knows she is a no goodnik when she disparages "religious mania" and addresses Trisa as "comrade". When a dashing pilot crash lands nearby, Trisa is soon displaced from Reza's boudoir. When Trisa is implicated in Goca's murder, Reza and Joska fan the fires of public opinion and the hive mind of a lynch mob takes over. Trisa is subjected to fiendish torture and death. The finale juxtaposes Trisa's traditional funeral with, in a nice satiric touch, a tractor ballet celebrating Tito's 100% support at the polls. The dead eyed stare of Reza at the village priest during the service rams home the message: big sister is watching.

Annie Girardot

Apart from divvying up the character of Nikolai Stavrogin between Trisa and Reza, the main difference between Demons and It Rains in My Village is the use of folk songs by Petrović. The wedding band, often joined by Joska, punctuates the action with songs that comment sardonically on what has transpired. A little levity goes a long way during this bleak, but brief (80 jam packed minutes) affair. Mija Aleksić was the most beloved Serbia entertainer of his generation, he eventually got his own postage stamp, and his musical digressions show why. He brings a very human face to a very evil character. The other leads are equally sublime. Palüch brings a solid presence to the simple minded shepherd. I remember Ms. Girardot for the deglamorized and put upon heroines she played in the 1970s and 80s, when Deneuve and Adjani got the glamour puss roles, so it was nice to see her so young and alluring. She gives her character just the right trace of a sneer. The role of Goca could have been a bad joke about female promiscuity, but the presence of Ms. Ras redeems the role. She makes her character a believable innocent. Because of her work with Dušan Makavejev, I've always found Ms. Ras to be the Serbian Shelley Duvall and that is, for me, high praise.

It Rains in My Village is the kind of near masterpiece that reassures me I have more to see before I shuffle off to Buffalo. Certainly I will be tracking down more films by Mr. Petrović. He didn't shy away from adapting classic novels as one of his later films was an adaptation of Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, my favorite novel of the 20th century. The fact that he succeeded with the equally unfilmable Demons gives me hope.