MODERNIZAM U FILMOVIMA ANTE BABAJE
MODERNISM IN ANTE BABAJA’S FILMS

Summary/Abstract: The cinematic work of Ante Babaja spans the period from 1955 to 2007, during which he developed an original cinematic poetics that established him as a prominent representative of modernism. The early phase of his career was marked by short fiction films of a satirical character, among which Lakat (kao takav) (Elbow (As Such), 1959) and Pravda (Justice, 1962) stand out, along with his feature-length debut Carevo novo ruho (The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1961). He then briefly turned to experimental-documentary films, among which Čuješ li me? (Can You Hear Me?, 1965) and Tijelo (The Body, 1965) stand out, foreshadowing his mature directorial phase. In this period, Babaja affirms naturalism and the grotesque, particularly evident in Breza (The Birch Tree, 1967) and Mirisi, zlato i tamjan (Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh, 1971). This paper examines selected examples of Babaja’s documentary and fiction films in greater detail, analyzing their modernist dimension with an emphasis on narrative techniques, characteristics of cinematic language, and semantic aspects of content, as well as their relationship to Croatian, Yugoslav, and European film contexts.

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