Milena Dravić conveys feeling without making a display of it, in ordinary women and eccentric leads alike. We value her most when a film gets talkative and she gives us a person worth staying with.
Fi1m perspective
In WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), Milena Dravić gives us someone to watch when the talk threatens to take over. Playing Milena in Dušan Makavejev’s collage of interviews and acted episodes, she makes its constant changes of direction easier to follow. Alongside Ivica Vidović and Jagoda Kaloper, she keeps the acted passages from becoming merely illustrations of what has been said. We were frustrated by the interruptions because Dravić had made us want to stay with her character.
Her breakthrough came with Branko Bauer’s Prekobrojna (1962), and her work would encompass war films, romantic comedies and experimental cinema. The Battle of Neretva (1969) and the Black Wave film Biciklisti (1970) sit close together, with Makavejev’s film following in 1971. She was moving between kinds of filmmaking that asked markedly different things of their actors. What interests us is her ability to remain credible without making those differences the main event.
She was often cast as ordinary women, rural or urban, with hopes of their own and considerable endurance. Her restrained style suits those parts, allowing feeling to register without pushing a scene towards sentimentality. Her recurring screen partnership with Ljubiša Samardžić, often in romantic or marital pairings, also belongs in any account of her work. In WR, we value the shared work with Vidović and Kaloper; Dravić need not dominate them to hold our attention.
Aleksandar Petković photographs the acted episodes for a film that will keep interrupting them with other material; the images remain effective after each switch. The restless editing keeps the ideas moving, though it prevents the sustained attachment the performances invite. Makavejev can still become tiresome when he explains too much, and Dravić cannot solve that for him. Start with WR: Mysteries of the Organism if experimental cinema appeals; she is good company through its more trying stretches.
Biography
Milena Dravić (1940–2018) was a Serbian actress. Born in Belgrade, she trained in dance and ballet from the age of four before enrolling at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. She made her film debut in 1959 and gained early recognition with a Golden Arena for Best Actress for Prekobrojna (1962).
Dravić appeared in over 100 films and numerous stage roles. She is known for performances in The Battle of Neretva (1969), WR: Mysteries of the Organism (1971), The Camp Followers (1965) and The Dark Side of the Sun (1988). In 1980 she received the Cannes Best Supporting Actress Award for Special Treatment. She was also awarded the Pavle Vujisić lifetime achievement prize in 1994. She was married three times, including to actor Dragan Nikolić.
