Balkan Rhapsodies by Jeff Daniel Silva
Run time: 58 minutes (2007)
Balkan Rhapsodies is an episodic documentary in 78 parts that weaves together a mosaic of encounters, observations and reflections from Jeff’s travels through war-torn Serbia and Kosovo. Mr. Silva was the first American allowed into Serbia after the NATO bombings in June of 1999, and the filming he did while there makes up the heart of the project. Jeff returned back to the Balkans later again in 2000 and a final time in 2005 to complete the project. At the heart of the project, is an episodic yet integrated structure inspired by the free-form and emotionally infused musical rhapsodies of the 19th century that tend to feature a series of short non-linear compositions with a range of highly contrasted moods, colours and tonalities. The rhapsodic structure in BR destabilizes linear time, highlighting the fragmentation of time, memory and history and its metaphoric implications of what became of the Former Yugoslavia. Balkan Rhapsodies weaves together an array visual and sound fragments, moving between intimate observational footage, candid testimonials from survivors, humorous musical interludes, conversations with renowned American intellectuals Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, and appropriated TV and web footage. The collection of detritus and shards of memories, evidence, and experiences builds to a melodic echo that resonates with the absurdity of the situation and reflects a political and social imperative beyond the conflicts in Yugoslavia into of our present day crises. The war in Kosovo may be long behind us but the issues and residue of history is still very present. The fact that Kosovo’s status to this day is being heatedly debated in the United Nations amidst a score of other new challenges from Iraq to Sudan serves as a vivid reminder that, as T.S. Eliot eloquently expresses:
Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.