Ćaća; documentary short, Croatia, 2025; D: Matej Beluhan, S: Ivo Sanader
The film chronicles the career of politician Ivo Sanader, member of the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), who was elected as the Prime Minister of Croatia in 2003 and 2007. However, he suddenly held a press conference and announced his resignation in 2009. Later, he was indicted for corruption, including through rigging public tenders, illegally selling Croatia's oil and gas company INA to the Hungarian company MOL, and taking a bribe to allow the foreign Hypo Bank to enter the Croatian market. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
One of the best films from Kino Klub Zagreb, excellent satirical documentary "Ćaća" (Croatian slang for "Pops") is a grand analysis of corruption, political pliability and that effect of 'rise and fall' of an influential figure. It's all archive footage, there is not a single word of a narrator nor any new scene intended to be a direct intervention, but through its suggestive images and playful re-arrangement of some scenes everything is clear to such an extent that no commentary is necessary for the viewers to understand what the author wanted to say. The unwillingness of politician and former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader to star in the film and be its "protagonist" is inversely proportional to the fun of this whole 13-minute movie. The director Matej Beluhan initially only presents political campaign ads in the first five minutes of the film, such as they were broadcast on TV, in all their propaganda. In the first add, an old man points to a giant poster of Sanader in a park, and says: "I believe this man!", while a lad with long hair cheerfully replies: "Me too, my friend!" In a house, Sanader's speech is seen on TV, as a man with a goatee, sitting on a couch, scratching his chin, says: "Grampa, I believe this man", as the grandpa, with big moustache, just nods.
In another public speech, Sanader is speaking: "Where are all those HDZ thieves? Why are they not in prison? It can't be that there are none!" In the second political ad, Niko Kovač, a football manager born outside Croatia, but allowed to vote in Croatia, looks into the camera and confidently says: "Precisely because of that, HDZ and Dr. Ivo Sanader." In a third political ad, the most surprising of all, the German Chancellor at that time, Angela Merkel, also promotes him: "Croatia is on the good way to become a member of the EU. All this was achieved under the leadership of HDZ and Ivo Sanader". Then the movie starts its deconstruction of all this. New inserts show how Sanader was indicted for corruption, and all those previous ads are now intermittently played again, gaining a new, comical conext, as if they drive in reverse: Merkel again repeats "all this was achieved under the leadership of HDZ and Ivo Sanader". At a court hearing, Sanader announces he is rejecting the accusations with disgust, and this is followed, indicatively, by the repeat of the ad where the lad with long hair says: "Me too, my friend!" A judge reads out the first degree verdict finding Sanader guilty, and the clip with Kovač is repeated: "Precisely because of that, HDZ and Dr. Ivo Sanader." When a news anchor says Sanader was sentenced to 18 years in prison, the grandpa with the moustache is seen noding again. All the previous statements now sound incriminating and farcical. That everything is understood just through these subtle re-arrangements just shows how cleverly set-up and edited this whole film is.
Grade:+++