How Heroes are Turned into Anti-Heroes: Mića Popović’s Delije

This essay is dedicated to one of the most intriguing films in the genre of the partisan film – Mića Popović’s Delije. Made in 1968 it had only a few public appearances before finally and quite paradoxically becoming the object of ignorance, mystification, and defamation at the same time (for instance, it was accused of being a “Chetnik-tuned counter-revolutionary insult” to “our socialist-revolutionary sanctuary”). Quite experimental on a formal level, Delije is the account of a post-war generation of former partisans who, after the end of the war, are dismissed and hereby deprived of their very meaning of life. The text describes the awkward reception of this outstanding masterpiece and discusses it as a specific genre phenomenon, standing right on the boarder line between partisan film and “crni talas” (the “Black Wave”).

The integral version of this article can be found in the printed KINO!