by joe x young
A Serbian Film. (No, not THAT one). We head into full-on Twilight Zone territory with Inkarnicija, a film from Serbia which is absolutely worth enduring the subtitles for. Our unlucky hero wakes up on a bench in a town centre street, he doesn’t know where he is or who he is and within minutes of the film starting he is being gunned down by masked men. So, he is dead, but this is only the beginning as he wakes up on that same bench with the same scenario being played out again, sort of like Groundhog Day for assassins but with bigger changes to the routine each time it is played out and no comedy. He splashes water up his face but cannot see his own reflection properly, so looks in a shop window; his reflection is distorted, same with every surface he looks at. Still he is chased down and shot by the masked men. He awakens again, this time in a hospital where they discover something unidentifiable in his blood. Just as some sort of sense may be made he is once again confronted by the masked men who shoot him, this time he wakes up on the bench again. The bench is at a crossroad, with four streets leading off from it, and each time he takes a different route from the one the assassins come from, and each time they catch up with him. Eventually he decides to go down the one they come from as he’s exhausted all other options. Now it may seem as if it’s all a little dull, with the repetition of a situation, but each time he is facing new pieces of the puzzle and is becoming more aware of things, starting to remember, albeit slowly, the things leading to his predicament. He meets up with a Doctor and gains the info that he has been given a serum which has wiped his memory. Fans of films such as Memento will find this to say the least intriguing as did I, but more than that, it’s actually gripping. Part of what makes it so good is that the whole thing, each differing scenario, is played out in public, with our hero waking on a bench amidst shops and the regular traders and people you’d usually expect to see. It continues with various chases around the locale, going in and out of various buildings only to end up being killed by the masked assassins again. I have no idea what the laws are about filming in Serbia, but to have masked men firing guns in a town centre high-street must have took some doing as it doesn’t give the impression that any streets were closed off or that many extras were involved. The ending is as illogical as the preceding events, even though there is an explanation after a fashion it doesn’t really satisfy, which I think is probably for the best because there are times when tying up a plot with a pretty bow just doesn’t work. Inkarnacija (Incarnation) works perfectly and piles on the suspense throughout. If you like foreign films, you can handle subtitles and don’t mind having to engage your brain while being entertained then this is the one for you. 
JONATHAN BUTCHER'S 6 UTTERLY TASTELESS MOVIES |
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