Mirage

Communist ideology considered family ‘the basic cell’ that comprises a society. The family and society as they are captured in Svetozar Ristovski’s début film create a world that will give you goose bumps. Mirage shows present-day Macedonia, but actually can stand for any country torn apart by war. Everything is wrong with the family of teenager Marko (Kovacevic): his father is a drunk, his mother seems to have lost contact with the world a long time ago, and his sister is an egoist going her own way and looking for her own happiness. At school, the situation is not any better, as Marko gets taunted by a group of boys and the harassment seems to get worse every day. The one person who gives him hope for the future is his Macedonian language teacher (Mustafa Nadarevic), who encourages him to write poetry. Unfortunately, this sensitive man turns out to be someone completely different than Marko expected. The family and school are used in this film as a metaphor for a sick society that the director places under a magnifying glass, not sparing anyone. This society destroys everything that was good and innocent in Marko, depriving him of his dreams to such an extent that he seeks his own revenge. (LC)