PHOTO CREDIT: CROSSING BRIDGES FILMS
Kastrati’s ‘Zana’ is a troubling, engaging look at Kosovo’s history through one woman’s eyes
Directed by: Antoneta Kastrati
Written by: Antoneta Kastrati and Casey Cooper Johnson
Starring: Adriana Matoshi, Astrit Kabashi and Fatmire Sahiti
“Zana” – “When men are oppressed, it’s a tragedy. When women are oppressed, it’s tradition.” – Letty Cottin Pogrebin
Lume (Adriana Matoshi), a late 30s Albanian housewife living in a rustic countryside-slice of Kosovo, is at war. Not the Kosovo War, because in director/co-writer Antoneta Kastrati’s “Zana”, that conflict ended about 10 years ago.
Lume is at war with herself, and with no allies in sight, nearby friends and family freely hand her a loaded revolver - in the forms of stress, putdowns and emotional abandonment - to continue her self-destructive, puzzling fight. This perilous community-concoction makes “Zana” a troubling but engaging story of drama, mystery and Kosovo’s history, and throughout the film, Kastrati paints Lume’s struggle with two emotional, off-putting tones: fear and misery.
Frequent nightmares regularly besiege our lead protagonist, as Kastrati and co-writer Casey Cooper Johnson find unexpected on-screen spaces to pitch disturbing bloody images that shake Lume’s foundation. While these jolts regularly disrupt her restful nights, Lume’s days offer no amnesty either.
With her red hair pulled back and some strands occasionally falling in front of her tired, hazel eyes, Lume usually toils with ranchwork – like scrubbing floors, hanging laundry on lines and milking their cow - for the bulk of the daylight hours. Calm reprieves and occasional smiles are woefully infrequent, but when Lume does stumble into a settled moment, her husband Ilir (Astrit Kabashi) or his mother Remzije (Fatmire Sahiti) will step in and harp about the lack of children running around their unhappy home. Worse yet, with Lume having fertility problems, talk of Ilir taking on another, noticeably younger wife appears to be no empty threat.
Kastrati, who grew up in Kosovo, lived under threats and suffered terrible tragedy during the war, but those experiences - that she’d probably like to forget - also created her long resume of documentaries and shorts about that distressing time and place. “Zana” is Kastrati’s first feature film, and she and her sister Sevdije (who is also the cinematographer and co-producer) traveled back to their home village to make this personal movie. Mind you, “Zana” is not an autobiographical story. Lume does not play Antoneta, but they share a wide-eyed female perspective of rural Kosovo, where women’s choices and opportunities are painfully narrow.
Under sunny skies, the Kastrati sisters capture wide, grassy gradients of green in every direction, that give the appearance of (and speak to) hope and bright new days, which truly contrast with Lume’s disposition. This deepens the mystery, because she should obviously feel constrained by the absence of choices, but an entirely separate, unknown layer of abrasion is scrubbing away at her soul.
Speaking of souls, not only do heavy doses of patriarchal wisdom dominate the village, but religious ones do as well. Therefore, pious solutions to Lume’s infertility issues are unfortunately explored, which raise another wall to further prevent her escape.
No, Kastrati does not pave an easy road for Lume, and the 97-minute runtime feels longer, but this is by design. “Zana” is an absorbing chronicle, as one woman grapples with reality in her mind and environment, and Matoshi stands tall with a masterful subdued performance. She clearly communicates Lume’s emotional present – and many times in silence - as her character tries to fight through painful, unknown barricades.
Whether or not Lume finds peace, freedom or both, “Zana” organically conveys the strained lives and times of women in the region who coped with war….and tradition.
(3/4 stars)
Jeff – a member of the Phoenix Critics Circle – has penned film reviews since 2008, graduated from ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and is a certified Rotten Tomatoes critic. Follow Jeff and the Phoenix Film Festival on Twitter @MitchFilmCritic and @PhoenixFilmFest, respectively.
