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Films for the Resistance: The Other Side of Everything
By lynmiller-lachmann on 2018-07-24 23:58:43
One of the great things about living in New York City is the availability of films from all over
the world. Last week I attended a screening at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens of the Serbian documentary The
Other Side of Everything, directed by Mila Turajli¢. Like another resistance film I profiled her and on my own blog, Burning
Bush, this one is distributed through HBO Europe, but it’s available for screenings in the US through Icarus Films. So even
if you can't get to New York to see it, the film is available and a good choice for an international or human rights film series,
one with important connections for the present day. The student uprising that toppled “the Butcher of Belgrade” Slobodan
Milosevié on October 5, 2000 and eventually brought him to justice in The Hague, is the focal point of the narrative
presented through the eyes of Srbijanka Turajli¢, the filmmaker’s mother and, as a 54-year-old professor of engineering, one
of the spokespeople for OTPOR, the dogged and resourceful resistance group. (Members of OTPOR consulted on the
creation of a video game from the 2000s, A Force More Powerful, which drew from a book by the same name to teach the
principles, strategies, and specific applications of nonviolent resistance to tyranny.) The documentary begins with 69-year-
old Srbijanka polishing handles for a door that will soon be opened to join her apartment to the adjacent one. After the
Communist takeover of Yugoslavia, around the time of her birth, Party officials demanded that the well-to-do family turn
over half of their space to people who had little or none. Their bathroom became a common bathroom in the hall, and the
new next door neighbors — government loyalists — spied on them. Later we see the neighboring family’s surviving
member, a bedridden 90-year woman, answer a census stating her loyalty to Milosevié’s nationalist successors. Through
images, we see “the other side of everything” is a significant number — often a majority — that worships power and
strength, “blood and soil,” and has little respect for diversity, democracy, or individual rights. Mira Turajli¢ deftly weaves
archival footage with her mother's reminiscences. One of the most powerful scenes for me was that of Serbians standing
along highways waving to soldiers in tanks heading to battle in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, where many
committed atrocities and others came back in body bags. Western sanctions made food scarce and money worthless, but,
almost inexplicably, people continued to vote for Milosevic. We see footage of the 1999 bombing of Belgrade, and
demonstrations in which Milosevié called out ten thousand of his supporters to face off against ten thousand anti-
government demonstrators with police in the middle to prevent all-out civil war. And finally, the October 5 revolution,
demonstrators storming the presidential palace and parliament building, setting fires and seizing furniture in their pent-up
fury. Into this power vacuum following Milosevic's resignation and flight, Srbijanka and the other OTPOR leaders stepped
in to restore order and institute a democratic government. She points out that revolution is the easy part, and "what happened
on October 6" the greater challenge. She became the Minister of Education, and worked with the other political "amateurs"
to change not only a government but a culture. For the most part, she says in the documentary, they failed. Through specific
images -- a painting hidden behind a wall from the Communist era on, the locked and glued-shut door to the neighbor's
apartment, census questions on "nationality" and "religion" that Srbijanka refuses to answer but the neighbor answers
enthusiastically -- the filmmaker shows how a refusal to address history honestly, suspicion of the Other, self-aggrandizing
nationalism -- contribute to the failure of the democratic revolution. But even though Srbijanka considers herself retired, she
feels the pull to engage (and after the film was made became a co-founder of the Movement of Free Citizens to oppose the
right-wing, pro-Putin "populist" government), and argues with her two daughters who consider emigration. [caption
id="attachment_ 11438" align="alignright" width="300"] The anti-corruption
rally I attended after seeing The Other Side of Everything.[/caption] I consider the sacrifice of a day of writing worth it.
Seeing The Other Side of Everything moved me to attend an evening anti-corruption rally in Times Square that day --
because, like Srbijanka Turajli¢, I wanted to do something in my small way to change things in my own country rather than
complaining within the four walls of my apartment or emigrating to a place with more freedom and opportunity. Obviously,
her efforts were more prominent than mine, one more body at a demonstration and one more blog post, but one never knows
what efforts ultimately have impact. And if she continues to work for peace, justice, and intercultural understanding despite
many setbacks and few victories, so can all of us.
