Branko Bauer

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Branko Bauer (18 February 1921 in Dubrovnik — 11 April 2002 in Zagreb) was a Croatian film director. He became interested in cinema as a school boy, influenced by a Jewish girl, a piano player, who was hiding in his parent's home from Ustasha Nazis. After World War Two, he started working in a communist state-controlled studio Jadran film as a documentarist. His feature debut was the youth adventure film Sinji galeb (Grey Seagull, 1953) which distinguished his work from then-native Yugoslav productions through vivid visual style and natural acting.

Contents 1 Don't Turn Around, Son 2 Three Annas 3 Face to Face 4 Late career 5 Critics on Bauer

[edit] Don't Turn Around, Son

Bauer became one of the most respected directors in Yugoslavia after his third film, the 1956 war thriller Ne Okreći Se Sine ('Don't Turn Around, Son'). The film tells a story about a resistance fighter, a refugee from an Ustasha Nazi concentration camp, who comes to Zagreb to find his son and join partisans in the Croatian highlands. But, he realises that his son is in an Ustasha boarding school and has been brainwashed. The hero escapes with his son, hiding from the Nazis, but throughout is forced to lie to his son about their actions. The film was loosely based on Carol Reed's thriller Odd Man Out, and its last scene - which inspired the title of the film - is inspired by Disney's Bambi.

[edit] Three Annas

Bauer's next film was Samo Ljudi (Just People, 1957), a melodrama under the influence of Douglas Sirk. The film was a critical flop, mainly because melodrama was not considered a serious genre in 50s communist Yugoslavia. But, recently Samo Ljudi became the object of serious re-evaluation. After that film, Bauer worked for Macedonian production and made Tri Ane (Three Annas, 1959), a film which is often compared to Umberto D by De Sica. Three Annas is a story about an old man who lives alone, believing that his daughter was killed in war as a child. Suddenly, he receives information that she could have survived and probably lives as an adult in a foster family. The film was not a success at the time, but today is often considered as Bauer's best film. Bauer's next two films were more commercially successful: the comedy Martin u oblacima (Martin in the Clouds, 1961), and Prekobrojna (One Too Many, 1962), which introduced Milena Dravić as a future Yugoslav superstar.

[edit] Face to Face

Probably the most famous of Bauer's films is Licem u lice (Face to Face, 1963), film which is considered as the first Yugoslav political film. It tells a story about a rebel worker who challenges a manager during the communist cell meeting in a huge construction company. Initially followed by political controversies, the film was supported by communist party officials at last, which was understood among filmmakers as a green light for more overt social topics. Živojin Pavlović, future master of the Serbian black wave, wrote in the early 60s that "Licem u lice is the most important film shot in Yugoslavia till know".

[edit] Late career

During the 60s, Yugoslav films shifted to modernism, and Bauer couldn't accommodate to an auteur cinema. In the 60s he made two unsuccessful modernist films, and finally moved to television directing. During the 70s, he directed a TV seria Salaš u malom ritu (1976), a war drama set in Vojvodina /Northern Serbia, one of the most memorable works of Yugoslav television.

[edit] Critics on Bauer

During the 50s and 60s, Bauer was a master of Yugoslav cinema, respected by the government and colleagues alike. Although his films never questioned the regime, the dominant set of values in these films was "old-fashioned" and "bourgeois": instead of glorification of youth and revolution, his films were often a glorification of decent, old, solid middle-class families. Bauer's typical heroes made the right moral choices not inspired by ideology, but driven by a sense of honour. Contemporary Croatian filmmaker Hrvoje Hribar once wrote that "Bauer was in a blind spot of communism, where ideology was as close as possible, but therefore least influential." In late 60s and 70s Bauer was almost forgotten, but was rediscovered by young critics in late 70s as the Yugoslav version of old Hollywood masters. Slovenian film historian Stojan Pelko wrote in the British Film Institute Encyclopeadia of Russian and Eastern European Cinema that "Bauer was for Yugoslav critics what Hawks and Ford were for French New Wave critics".