Those Shocking Shaking Days

Selma Doborac quotes “war” by means of authentic VHS material shot in the midst of the Bosnian war. Two forms of war documentation thereby converge: one form conveys the impression it was produced for the sake of medial digestion, while the other stems from local chroniclers. In addition to an abundance of various textual materials Doborac focuses on consequences of the war using 16 mm documentary images she filmed of landscapes fortified by architecture. These pictures allow us to observe how nature is reconquering the territory.

Nature is apparently unstoppable as it reappropriates houses that increasingly display clear signs of dissolution and decay over the course of the film – houses that had to be abandoned and to which nobody will return due to the atrocities inscribed in their architecture. Vegetation has overtaken the ruins, rampant undergrowth blocks former doorways, and so the buildings are gradually given to disappear. Shrubs nodding in the wind gently demand we move on. ”Those Shocking Shaking Days” by Selma Doborac is aside from all this also a film about filmmaking, about the aspiration to step out of a private microcosm and fearlessly take on a colossal theme armed with the weapon of art.

Hanno Millesi