northerncrane4 said:BTW, I found myself counting up to 20 just to stay engaged—which, by my standards, is painfully slow. A dog ran into the frame right at 20. If I’d kept counting, the protagonist probably wouldn't have appeared until 33. My internal metronome clearly isn't synced with the director's.😁
Same here. 😁 Maybe I should have counted using Mississippi time: one Mississippi, two Mississippi...
northerncrane4 said:Well—"rightly so." To him, in the heat of the moment, the police badgering him about who was bleeding might seem stupid or misplaced. But eventually, our author should realize that those questions aren't "stupid"—they’re standard procedure for officers dealing with situations they see far more often than he does. For Lerotić, this tragedy is a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare; for those cops and paramedics, it’s just damn routine. And even within that routine, I still don't see why he feels the need to quietly—yet legally—accuse them of being incompetent.
One might think these gripes have nothing to do with the film's quality, but for me, it matters—especially in a movie that asks you to buy into the director's specific perspective. I don't care much about his stylistic choices, provided his core message is clear and his conclusions actually hold water. 🤷
To me, looking for someone to blame within institutions feels like hindsight bias, which seems natural... But I wouldn't assume things aren't becoming clear to him—both as the author and as the brother. Perhaps it only dawned on him later that their questioning—like when they asked about the blood during that second hospital meeting, after he naively asked for a badge number, or after they brushed off his question about whether the psychiatrist cleared the exam by saying "you're too young for this"—was actually a form of intimidation. We know how cops can be; they tend to intimidate when you call them out on being unprofessional. If they were true professionals who knew their business and followed routine procedure, they shouldn't be so sensitive. It seems obvious to me that Lerotić wanted to convey that they are conducting this investigation on the fly and don't actually care about the details.
The same goes for the psychiatrist, who is never in his office during business hours, and when he is, he's "difficult." He gets offended by simple questions about what therapy he's prescribing, reacts passively-aggressively, and then takes it a step further by acting out against the patient later. Isn't the doctor's frustration over my supposed lack of trust a little paranoid and "off"? Could the author truly judge from that position at that moment? I don't think so, but he certainly had a gut feeling, and it was justified.
For Lerotić, this tragedy is an extraordinary event, but for all those cops and medical staff, it's just a damn routine. Even within that routine, I still don't see why he accuses them so quietly, yet legally, it sounds quite specific.
Clearly for negligence. What they did within the scope of their routine is the only thing that matters, because I don't really care what they...
experience routine. Their duty and responsibility is to perform their job with professional consistency. It means knowing what can happen in those routine situations, and it should never happen that someone, dammit, gets thrown out a window. Being mentally prepared for a "Saturday night madness" isn't enough if you end up hacking yourself to pieces.
Regarding the situation in Washington, D.C., if we're talking about schizophrenia—or even just a psychotic episode—you don't prescribe antidepressants and Xanax like you would for other "elevated states." You prescribe an antipsychotic. This suggests he wasn't examined by a psychiatrist, and likely the first person to see him was just some guy from Vermont; then, during rounds the next afternoon, he escaped... We could certainly criticize the brother and mother for failing to distinguish depression from psychosis and for sticking with the wrong therapy.
You might get the impression these criticisms have nothing to do with the film's quality, but to me, it matters deeply in a movie that tries to present an author's specific thesis. I care less about the cinematic techniques used, as long as I feel the director knows exactly what he's talking about and his conclusions hold weight.
I get the sense you're being a bit too skeptical. I think Lerotić was capable of reflecting and reaching some valid conclusions—which aren't even that far-fetched—even as an ordinary guy. I also think he's flesh and blood, and that he primarily blames himself. That’s why he puts himself front and center throughout the entire film, obsessively questioning his own actions: I did this, then that... How much is my fault, and how much is the psychiatrist's? And am I more at fault for not trusting the doctor in Washington, D.C., or for trusting the one in Split?
Well, that's the hard truth. Now, whether an author who essentially exploits his own trauma is capable of anything else—that would be context for other films I haven't seen. For me, this film works because I feel I understand the intention behind every scene, and I feel he succeeded in every single one. Sometimes it touched me, sometimes it shook me... which is perhaps mostly thanks to Marković, because I could easily see him in the director's chair myself.