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Innocence Unprotected Movie Review

Innocence Unprotected (Nevinost bez zastite) is a 1968 Yugoslav experimental documentary film directed by Dusan Makavejev. It’s a film like no other.

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“Imacu te, mackice“

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This film is a beast all its own. It is the ultimate case of idiosyncrasy as you cannot really pinpoint any reference points or influences in it as the entirety of the picture is purely original. I realize that it might not be for everyone, surely that must be the case, but for me as a cinephile it was an utter delight.

This film mainly serves to document the titular 1941 film, which was the first ever sound film produced in Serbia. And the film itself is absolutely hilarious. Obviously, the transition from silent flicks to talkies wasn’t smooth anywhere else in the world, and certainly that was the case here too. The acting is particularly exaggerated, theatrical and as a result very funny throughout.

Apparently, the plot concerns an older man who wants to be with a younger woman, but she is already in love with another man. The man is a very handsome, incredibly muscular strongman. This plot clearly is ridiculous, reminding me of those countless 1930s melodramas that are silly in plot and relying on hysterics in terms of dialogue and clearly overstated emotion. All of the scenes between these three characters were so ludicrous, but also funny and charming in their own unique way. The histrionics here are undeniably appealing.

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But the major strength to this film lies in Makavejev’s direction. He is one of Serbia’s most famous auteurs, and for a good reason. His direction on this film is undeniably astonishing. His ideas are uniformly authentic, and what he did in the editing/structure department is particularly worthy of praise.

And that part makes the film especially difficult to categorize. You can try, but you will fail, which is why this is one of the most difficult reviews that I remember writing. So, the editing from Ivanka Vukasovic is spectacular. At first, I was taken aback by the sudden edits and cuts to other scenes, but then I quickly got accustomed to it, and I started to appreciate their wild originality.

Whenever the girl talks about the acrobatic man, the film cuts to his accomplishments and his acrobatics. It is weird, but it works as it made the movie very dynamic, and those cuts reminded me a bit of the Soviet editing techniques during the twenties era, but still they felt mostly incomparable to anything else before or after in the history of cinema. That’s why the movie is difficult to describe, but consistently involving and, I would even say, a lot of fun.

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The charm is undeniable, but the humor is also excellent. The interviews are solid in number, and those make the film a documentary in a way, but otherwise it’s a mix of experimental and compilation film, again hard even to put into a specific genre or two. All of the interviews are wonderful, but simultaneously very sad as the director did not tell those actors from the movie that the tone of the film would be jokey, but that clash of their dignified response and a comedic tone made the film even funnier than it was already.

The most fascinating part of the film for me was simply seeing this film come out in 1941 for the first time, and how the Nazis, who were occupying Serbia at the time, set out to stop the film dead in its tracks. And it was also very sad in a way seeing Innocence Unprotected as a reminder of how Serbs do not appreciate their cinema history, and how many of these historically important films are lost and forgotten.

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The traditional score in Nevinost bez zastite is also excellent and quite endearing, the cinematography is striking with the use of color being particularly inspired, the runtime is short and sweet, and the themes are numerous, though clearly somewhat disconnected from one another. The film somewhat loses its steam near the end as it’s still engaging, but to a lesser extent. Still, it remains one of the most interesting Serbian films ever made, and one of the most intriguing experiments in the history of cinema.

Due to undeniably amazing, impressive cuts and edits, very interesting interviews, Makavejev’s phenomenal direction, and an authentic, one of a kind structure to it, Nevinost bez zastite (Innocence Unprotected) is indisputably the very definition of an idiosyncratic motion picture. It is so difficult to categorize and organize into genres in fact that it really becomes a fascinating, thematically rich case study for Serbian cinema history that truly is an utter delight, especially for cinephiles longing for something entirely different.