originally published on Cineuropa
"It happened in a country that no longer exists, except in books, films and memories of those born before 1995", we are informed by the off-screen narrator (Slavica Bajčeta) at the very beginning of Iva Radivojević’s third feature When the Phone Rang, premiering in Locarno's Cineasti del presente competition. The phone rang one Friday, at 10:36 in the morning, the year was 1992, and it completely changed the world our protagonist and the filmmaker’s alter-ego Lana (Natalija Ilinčić) had existed in so far. In the first repetition (of ten in total), she is informed by the voice from the other side that her maternal grandfather died of a heart-attack. For her, that call announced the war, so soon enough, she and her family left the country.
The narrator explains that the urgency of the call lasted for days for Lana, and we soon get the meaning of that phrase. In the next repetitions, Lana receives different phone calls from different people, always on Friday and always at 10:36AM. We learn a thing or two about her fascination with her older sister's classmate Vlada (Vasilije Zečević), a punk-rocker and an anarchist who doesn't care about death, a glue-sniffer and her protector on the street; but also about the routine spying games she plays with her younger neighbour Jova (Anton Augustin), following and imagining the lives of strangers; having to say goodbye to her friends Mirjana and Olja; the words of love she shares with Andrijana; the troubles her father might have gotten into by dealing with a mobster nicknamed “The Barking One”; and the army background of her paternal grandfather…
It seems enough for several lives, or at least several periods of a life, and all of it rings true individually, but combined, these events only make sense as a mix of fading memories. But Radivojević’s film is not about the “facts” of the lives of the characters around Lana – instead, it is interested in the memories that tend to be produced at an inflationary pace at formative periods, and which often melt together with others into a confusion where only vague sentiments and emotions can be remembered. In this case, it is the memory of the collapse of Yugoslavia in a bloody war, and of the lives of ordinary people slipping into uncertainty, riddled with crime and poverty during the 1990s, as seen through the eyes of an 11-year-old girl.
Filming in the city of Novi Sad and finding locations that have not changed much since the 1990s, Radivojević makes a powerful and intelligent film that hits on both the cerebral and the visceral level. As was the case with her earlier works, she maintains full control over the material, working as her own editor, production designer and casting director. Regarding the latter, she really picked interesting, talented newcomers she could work with easily, especially Natalija Ilinčić, whose interpretation of Lana going through different emotions is simply stellar, further highlighted by Radivojević’s close-ups.
The use of 16mm stock in Martin Dicicco’s cinematography might seem as risky, counter-intuitive move since the format is usually associated with more pleasant memories, but it brings another layer of dreaminess where colours get enhanced in a seemingly natural way, and the graininess of the material creates a foggy, blurry look corresponding with fading childhood memories. In the end, When the Phone Rang is an extremely well-made film, a concentrated and stimulating viewing experience that stays with the viewer.