Kaja, I’ll Kill You!

A peaceful and carefree Dalmation town, where life is good, until the men in black uniforms arrive, and then no street nor home is safe from the bloodshed and terror, the Italian occupation in Croatia has begun.

A small, typical Dalmatian town. Life happens in good parts on the streets and squares. Children play. The adults work and sing. The waves break at the pier and the sun shines bright. Festivities are enjoyed collectively. And then, one day, there are men in black uniforms on the streets and squares of the town. And while the sun still shines, life slowly vanishes into the private spheres of people’s homes, until these are also not private any more. Until the men in the black uniforms start sawing off the heads of statues hundreds of years old, defacing paintings just because they can, wrecking havoc where once was peace and quiet…

Vatroslav Mimica is one of the greatest filmmakers of all time, for few others have experimented so extensively with unusual ways of storytelling in the realm of fiction features meant to be seen by mass audiences. Kaja, I’ll Kill You! might well be his greatest feat: a grim study in the workings of oppression done as a poetic essay in fragmentation and ellipses.

– Olaf Möller

• 

• 

•