previously published on Cineuropa
It is easy to label any seemingly unserious piece of cinematic work as “trash”, but sometimes, there is a method to the madness. Dražen Žarković’s Summer Teeth, fresh from its premiere at the Pula Film Festival, might not be the only Croatian film of its kind (some might remember Predrag Ličina’s 2019 zombie-infested political satire The Last Serb in Croatia, for instance), but it is carefully thought out and meticulously executed in every respect, so it could prove to be a cinematic hit in the wider region of the former Yugoslavia. Its universal humour, anti-nationalistic message, and the fact that the film is a co-production between Croatia, Serbia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina might seem like good arguments to support this claim further.
Close to losing his poorly paid job and the flat he is renting, Zagreb-based student Vatroslav (Montenegrin actor Momčilo Otašević) accepts an offer from his co-worker and buddy Filip (Roko Sikavica, glimpsed in The Uncle) to replace him and help his grandmother Mariljka (Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov, seen in Safe Place) with the summer chore of harvesting tomatoes on the remote Dalmatian island of Little Head. Once on the island, Vatroslav is met with its inhabitants’ general quirkiness, which sometimes turns into open hostility. It seems that the only person willing to help him is local dentist Irena (Ivana Gulin, so far mostly active on television), while the others, including granny and the couple of Serbian tourists who are staying in her property, Mića (Ljubiša Savanović) and his heavily pregnant wife Jelena (Milica Janevski), might seem too eccentric to be helpful in any way. Furthermore, there is clear resentment between the youthful, party-loving island minority and the intolerant majority…
The isle and its abandoned military base from Yugoslav times harbour more secrets that will soon be revealed, once it emerges that the brandy that the granny uses as fertiliser is not just an alcoholic beverage, and the tomatoes laced with it cause a zombie epidemic among the inhabitants. After a tomato-fuelled fiesta, Vatroslav and his new buddies have to run from an angry mob of zombie-vampires with pointy teeth, led by two incompetent cops played by Slavko Sobin and Damir Markovina.
Working from a playful but solid genre script written by Ivan Turković Krnjak and Maja Todorović, Žarković – whose most recent filmmaking credits include two movies for children and youth, The Mysterious Boy and My Grandpa Is an Alien (co-directed with Marina Andrée Škop) – does a superb job of directing a smooth blend of an action-horror and a comedy-parody-satire by mixing both types of ingredients deftly to tell a story in a dynamic and easy-to-follow manner. His command of the technical crew is stellar, since the cinematography by Saša Petković is always appropriately kinetic and picture postcard-pretty in terms of the colours, and the editing by Saša Karakaš Šikanić keeps the movie in a high gear most of the time. With the help of the award-winning visual effects by Krsto Jaram, Summer Teeth is a pure joy to watch.
The same could be said of Žarković’s work with the actors, whereby he allows their interplay with one another pretty freely, channelling the palpable dynamic between the characters. Momčilo Otašević is a natural-born leading man with the capability to achieve a smooth transformation between confusion and assertiveness, which helps him with the transition between genre keys, and the chemistry he shares with Ivana Gulin is undeniable, while Ljubiša Savanović’s, Milica Janevski’s and Snježana Sinovčić Šiškov’s characters have the most comedic “juice”.