Safe Place (Juraj Lerotić, 2022) (Patreon)

A brief note on a Croatian film that has flown a bit under the radar during the 2022 festival season. Safe Place is a rare animal indeed: a debut feature, autobiographical in nature, with the director serving as lead actor, essentially occupying the role he did in real life. There are so many ways Safe Place could run aground, notably the fact that Lerotić is so incredibly close to the material. Against all odds, this is a debut film of remarkable assurance, with a formalist chill that suggests that Lerotić is working overtime to keep the pathos as bay.

In the opening shot, we see Bruno (Lerotić) kicking down the door of his brother Damir's (Goran Marković) apartment. Damir has just barely survived a suicide attempt, and the remainder of the film entails Bruno securing medical care for Damir, getting him committed, Damir escaping, and the two of them, along with their mother (Snježana Sinovčić) fleeing Zagreb for their hometown of Split, where they hope get Damir more sympathetic psychological care.

The film is saturated with a dark, painterly pall, with flat, rectilinear compositions and multiple reflections in panes of glass. Haneke and Sokurov come to mind as points of comparison, but neither is adequate, largely because Lerotić makes such skillful use of the dank, decrepit post-Soviet environment that Croatia is still climbing out of. Plus, its compressed timeline (essentially a day and a half) lends a Dardennes-style urgency to the narrative. There are at least four scenes that show Bruno running from one place to another, either looking for Damir or trying to get him help. But these shots are always from a significant distance, Lerotić showing himself navigating spaces that seem designed to thwart his efforts.

I won't say much more, since virtually no one has seen Safe Place. But I implore you to seek it out if you get the chance.