Arsen Oremović: The Hasutor showed me the importance of imagination and magic

Speaking about his film on Haustor, one of the most influential bands in the region, director Arsen Oremović says it is neither a biography, nor a story about an album, nor about the band reuniting after 40 years, but rather a journey through the magic of everyday life. The film THIRD WORLD was screened in the Competition Programme - Documentary Film of the 31st Sarajevo Film Festival. 

 

 

As a fourteen-year-old kid, I saw Haustor at two very important concerts for me: the first was in Zagreb's SKUC, the second at the Dom Sportova at the Music Biennale, when Haustor and Šarlo akrobatas were the opening acts for the Gang of Four. Today those concerts, especially the second one, were among the most important moments of the music of the former state, but at the time I didn't feel it because I thought it was completely normal and that's how it should be. And that it will never be anything less than that. What a mistake. 

 

When I heard the lyrics "Who ate Sljeme last night and drank Sava" (song Who is that), "When spring arrives, March 23-April, I bring a chair out to the porch" (song '60-'65) and similar - those were the moments that, as someone who pays attention to the lyrics, simply removed most of the ex-Yugoslav rock, especially what was considered great until then, because I considered that they sing for nothing, that the lyrics exist so that there is something to sing along with the music. 

 

This special way of poetic observation of Haustor's affairs became the focus of the work on the film Treći svijet, when exactly five years ago we met at the premises of Interfilm - Darko Rundek, Srđan Sacher and I - with the idea of discussing a possible film. That conversation was recorded, later I listened to it many times and I realized that both of them are exactly the characters you need for a film. We already knew at that time that they are quite opposing characters, who find it difficult to get into a situation where they cooperate with each other, but also that they are ready to talk about it very openly because they are simply people of substance, and not people-projects like a large part of our music stars who are primarily interested in PR. 

 

We immediately agreed that we absolutely did not want to make a classic biographical film about a band in which five of the same music critics from the region would talk about their importance. We agreed that the right way - given their truly vivid aesthetics - was to make a film about the things that shaped these two special, but distinctively different characters and artists. 

 

It turned out that it was a preference for the magic of the everyday, spaces "in between", theatricality and deep rootedness in the local Zagreb flair. That connection made it possible for the two, in the time of several single records and two albums, as Sacher says, "to decide to jump the fence together". For me, that setting had a strong visual motive, but also a content. Of course, for an audience that likes to see more in life than meets the eye. 

 

 

At the time of the first arrangements, I could not even dream that the band would want to enter the studio again. The biggest problem for me was how to make a documentary about a band that doesn't exist anymore, because then you don't have any creative process to follow. And then, two years after that, two crucial moments happened that provided a clear point of view for the film. On the occasion of the preparation of the reissue of the album Treći svijet, a dub version of the title track was found in the archives of Croatia Records, which was removed from the album and remained unreleased for almost 40 years. At the same time, I found in the HRT archive not only a never-shown recording of Haustor from the Split studio in 1984, but also separate video channels of each member separately. That's where the song Treći svijet became the focal point of the story and a metaphor for the whole world that shaped the two of them and the aesthetics of Haustor. 

 

 

Their decision to re-enter the studio for the purpose of the film and rework the original dub, which now seemed unfinished to them, was the biggest and best possible change - because observation is a very important part of documentary. That development – from a non-existent band to a studio reunion – not only changed the content of the film, but also its tone and visual dynamics. Years of work passed, primarily due to the dynamics of their collaboration on that and other songs, which was particularly slow. But all this allowed me to penetrate deeper into their personal processes and ways of functioning, and being in that third world of everyday magic brought me some personal changes in my view of everyday life. 

 

 

While the band, of course among many, helped shape my interests and aesthetics in the early stages of my life, now - in this later stage - when a person is looking for new motives, it showed me the importance of imagination and magic. Not as an escape from everyday life, not as a refuge, but as fuel. A few years ago, I couldn't even imagine writing a book and a movie for children, and that's exactly what I'm doing these days. 

 

 

I hope that the audience will be interested, because as far as I can see, Haustor still ranks very well among the new generations - not only in Sarajevo but in the entire region. Since this is not a classic biographical film, because information about everyone and everything can be found on the Internet with few clicks today, I believe that viewers will also recognize a deeper layer: what shaped their aesthetics and way of working. But also the message of the film - which deeply touched me personally. In a time that offers us less and less hope, this film encourages us to turn to ourselves and our own experiences. Instead of assuming pre-served, often backward collective identities, he talks about the importance of developing a personal view of the world - curiosity, relying on one's own sensibilities and the eyes of a child. 

 

Sarajevo is particularly important to me in all of this - because it was the award at this festival for the film Married to the Swiss in 2014 that marked my transition from critic-journalist to author phase. Now I am returning to the festival with a certain filmography - and perhaps the most personal, authorial and production-demanding film. In terms of the duration of the work, the technical scope and the amount of material, Third World far surpasses all my previous projects. I hope the response will be like that. 

 

As far as distribution is concerned, until the end of the summer, the film will go to festivals, and from the end of September and the beginning of October, we will start screenings in the countries of the former Yugoslavia. I hope that in these days, while we are in Sarajevo, we will also define the agreement on distribution in Bosnia and Herzegovina.