"Godisnja doba" or "Four Seasons" is one among only few movies made by one of the leading Croation directors of documentary film. It contains three stories connected only by the fact that main characters are girls from an orphanage. The name of the movie is hard to understand: if the number of stories and girls were four it could make sense, as well as if the stories covered a year of their lives. But each of the stories picks up an important but short piece of their lives, a few months in first, and only few weeks in other two stories, and the director handles them as he does in his documentary works, emphasizing essential moments, and leaving emotions covered (yet provoking them in viewers), because emotions aren't something you can expect to be developed in orphanages.
But, if you can ignore hopeless trying to figure the meaning of the title, you won't be disappointed by the movie itself. Carefully chosen ages and situations lead to similar ending, not a deep tragic finals like Greek or Shakespeare's tragedies, but realistic sad breakpoints which show that whatever may happen, there are no bright moments in orphans' lives. May it be a little adopted girl who only terminates the false stable marriage of her foster-parents, a teenage girl who isn't distinguished from delinquents even by a social worker and is treated the same way as them, or a young woman who must leave an orphanage because of her age, unprepared for real life and people with prejudices she has to meet, the lack of family life leaves incurable scars in their souls. But Krelja is realistic: family isn't always any better that orphanage, so we meet kids who repeatedly run away from home because life in institutions is less painful than the way their parents and relatives abuse them.
Krelja also chooses different social environments. In first story the adopters are members of high, almost middle-European aristocratic type of family (as much as it could have existed in communist Yugoslavia), in second story is put in an institution for delinquents and children in social problematic situations, and the third shows us working class that, despite all proclamations, in socialism didn't have any more chances to improve their lives and had no more expectations than in any capitalist country so condemned by authorities (and Krelja was quite bold showing existence of these classes in a society supposed to be free of class differences). And emotions also depend on the environment: they are false or hidden in first story, people can only feel offended an try to insult others, and even these feelings have lack of passion; there is no place for emotions when you work in factory and exist only for today having no real tomorrow, just only some occasional sex or trying to seduce (if successful it's good, if not never mind) in third story, and relations with teenage peers might lead to emotions in second story, but institution organized between army and jail disables them (and the fact that kids stay only a few days before being sent away doesn't help either).
There is an interesting relation to freedom: Zeljka, a little girl in first story has big opportunities, her new parents organize her everything (ballet, foreign language, babysitter) and therefore every moment is planned in single details; Visnja, teenager from second story has to fight for her freedom, and she manages to have a free but joyless walk through city streets, and a key in the door is her final destiny, while Branka in the third story doesn't have any formal bars, she is release to be free, but too free: free of home, friends, boyfriend (far away in the army), money, even a room to spend the night. There is no big difference on which side of locked door you are.
The cast contains some of very popular actors in those years, and there is one not so small irony: Boris Buzancic and Sanda Langerholz, a couple that adopts a girl, but then ends in divorce, played in many children programs - roles of parents in happy families... Krelja points that if such people can't cope with an orphan, what can these children expect? (And he answers in following stories...)
French or Swedish directors would have probably made more from these stories. But French and Swedish directors live in France and Sweden that have tradition in movies about kids (kids in Croatian/Yugoslavian movies usually appeared only in rare kids movies or comedies, there were just a few dramas about growing up made in Yugoslavia), but there is also a big difference between life in France or Sweden and Yugoslavia in 70's, and this movie is firmly located in Zagreb (not some sometime-somewhere story). Sad and bitter story, end, life.
But, if you can ignore hopeless trying to figure the meaning of the title, you won't be disappointed by the movie itself. Carefully chosen ages and situations lead to similar ending, not a deep tragic finals like Greek or Shakespeare's tragedies, but realistic sad breakpoints which show that whatever may happen, there are no bright moments in orphans' lives. May it be a little adopted girl who only terminates the false stable marriage of her foster-parents, a teenage girl who isn't distinguished from delinquents even by a social worker and is treated the same way as them, or a young woman who must leave an orphanage because of her age, unprepared for real life and people with prejudices she has to meet, the lack of family life leaves incurable scars in their souls. But Krelja is realistic: family isn't always any better that orphanage, so we meet kids who repeatedly run away from home because life in institutions is less painful than the way their parents and relatives abuse them.
Krelja also chooses different social environments. In first story the adopters are members of high, almost middle-European aristocratic type of family (as much as it could have existed in communist Yugoslavia), in second story is put in an institution for delinquents and children in social problematic situations, and the third shows us working class that, despite all proclamations, in socialism didn't have any more chances to improve their lives and had no more expectations than in any capitalist country so condemned by authorities (and Krelja was quite bold showing existence of these classes in a society supposed to be free of class differences). And emotions also depend on the environment: they are false or hidden in first story, people can only feel offended an try to insult others, and even these feelings have lack of passion; there is no place for emotions when you work in factory and exist only for today having no real tomorrow, just only some occasional sex or trying to seduce (if successful it's good, if not never mind) in third story, and relations with teenage peers might lead to emotions in second story, but institution organized between army and jail disables them (and the fact that kids stay only a few days before being sent away doesn't help either).
There is an interesting relation to freedom: Zeljka, a little girl in first story has big opportunities, her new parents organize her everything (ballet, foreign language, babysitter) and therefore every moment is planned in single details; Visnja, teenager from second story has to fight for her freedom, and she manages to have a free but joyless walk through city streets, and a key in the door is her final destiny, while Branka in the third story doesn't have any formal bars, she is release to be free, but too free: free of home, friends, boyfriend (far away in the army), money, even a room to spend the night. There is no big difference on which side of locked door you are.
The cast contains some of very popular actors in those years, and there is one not so small irony: Boris Buzancic and Sanda Langerholz, a couple that adopts a girl, but then ends in divorce, played in many children programs - roles of parents in happy families... Krelja points that if such people can't cope with an orphan, what can these children expect? (And he answers in following stories...)
French or Swedish directors would have probably made more from these stories. But French and Swedish directors live in France and Sweden that have tradition in movies about kids (kids in Croatian/Yugoslavian movies usually appeared only in rare kids movies or comedies, there were just a few dramas about growing up made in Yugoslavia), but there is also a big difference between life in France or Sweden and Yugoslavia in 70's, and this movie is firmly located in Zagreb (not some sometime-somewhere story). Sad and bitter story, end, life.
