The Whirlpool (2013)

“Not for the faint-hearted” was all I had to see to choose a screening of The Whirlpool at CIFF 2013 over one of Oh Boy, a European Film Award winning black-and-white comedy. I am naturally drawn to boundary pushing films that can stick a wrench in my gut and effectively reinforce my bleak world-view.

The Serbian film directed by Bojan Vuk Kosovcevic failed to adequately satisfy my cinematic appetite. However, I still remain in praise of what it set out to do and how it attempts to accomplish just that, even though I found the ending quite inconclusive and ambiguous. I couldn’t dismiss away such an ambitious film that has so much going for it. But I wouldn’t deem it a success either.

The Whirlpool comprises of three chapters revolving around three characters. The first act involves a gang member named Bogdan who’s just been released from prison. We see that he’s revered by members of his gang. We also see that his absence hasn't given way for one of his underlings to override his once established authority. Bogdan seems to want to make the most of his time outside prison even if it is at the cost of ending up back in prison. He tries to relight an old flame with a girl, who now belongs to another gang-member with legends woven around him. This act also unsettles another girl from Bogdan's gang who has taken a liking for Bogdan. 

 Bogdan gets by marching to the beat of his own drum- breaking bottles, beating people up, starting shit at a rock concert etc. The guy’s been given a new lease on life in the free world but he seems determined in pissing it away. Film-maker Bojan is most interested in how his character feels, that raw emotion seething underneath him. What Bogdan thinks, on the other hand, is irrelevant because he’s clearly sketched out as someone who acts on impulse, without delving into much thought. Why he is this way...I'm not entirely sure.

Bogdan is someone who could very easily serve as a catalyst for an explosive situation. We watch him, waiting for this explosive moment of finality.  And when it comes, the authorities take him in, back to where he belongs. However, this climax is preceded by a flashback that seems to point to Bogdan’s inability to let go of a childhood history of parental abuse. What this means and how this ties up to the other two chapters in the film remain unknown, even at the end of the film. Bogdan is tossed out of The Whirlpool like a hot potato by film-maker Bojan.

The next segment of the film is centred on Kale, a gangster who, barring his girlfriend, shares nothing in common with Bogdan. He’s another guy living in the same crime world, but has his own life trajectory, his own story. He, too, is an alpha-dog character, but one who is composed and restrained, much unlike Bogdan. It is this character attribute that allows him to command respect. While Bogdan’s underlings feared him, Kale’s respected him.

Kale’s share of troubles comes from his own inability to let go of unsettled scores. He has an obsession with coming out on top and getting even, through every situation. He seems imprisoned by internal torment when the scales aren’t tipping towards his end.

I would imagine surviving innumerable shoot-outs in the crime world to be something of a blessing for a gangster, in addition to the perfect record that comes with it. But for Kale, it comes as a curse. People are afraid to accompany him on his hits because they believe him to be bad luck. This is an interesting piece of detail. An amusing, idiosyncratic conclusion that lends authenticity to the world Kale lives in, saying quite a bit about the people working with, or for, him. Nevertheless an aspiring gangster lets this statistic slide to work with his hero. For him, this is an opportunity; or rather a whirlpool of opportunities.

Nevertheless, Kale has a way out of this mess. He has an uncle who offers to ship him and his girlfriend out of the country while offering them protection along the way. But Kale isn’t finished yet. He has to avenge a dead friend and cannot retire from the crime world in peace without performing such a rite. That his uncle is making such an accommodation doesn’t seem like one that deserves just as much an accommodation on his part. And so, he makes one last-ditch attempt that winds him up in a massive shoot-out. This is the most exciting scene sequence in the film, largely because of the groovy music underscoring it.

While Kale does come out on top, further reinforcing the superstition built around him, he cannot walk away. He is further dragged into the whirlpool of violence when he realizes that a friend has betrayed him. And now, he cannot leave until he gets even with this guy too. It becomes apparent now, the whirlpool film-maker Bojan is referring to. Is it the desire to settle scores? Is he referring to avoiding an emotional spiral?

Bogdan channelized his deep-seated anger for his father everywhere else while Kale is simply incapable of walking away from a situation without coming out on top. That Kale meets his end in the most tragic and unfortunate manner is a testament to the film-maker’s empathy, something he seemed to feel very little of for Bogdan. Much unlike the case of Bogdan, you find yourself easily able to identify with Kale and are both interested and invested in what becomes of him.

The Whirlpool has reached its crescendo and from here, the film only manages to detract from what Bojan has achieved thus far. The final act, the least compelling of the three, revolves around Grof, an eccentric street artist working on a painting he calls The Whirlpool. He gets distracted by a scuffle, involves himself and ends up being chased by a herd of ruffians. This chase somehow culminates with him being driven away by the police. He is interrogated by a sexually frustrated policewoman who makes sexual advances on him before handing him over to another male officer. Grof is ordered to paint a horse and then mount it, which he sincerely attempts to do. This, apparently, is comedy.

After all of this goofiness, we’re expected to take Grof and his feelings seriously. We’re expected to empathize with him when we want to dismiss him. As if the bizarre shift to comedy wasn’t enough of a downer.

And so, it turns out that Grof is haunted by a dark past. Traumatic memories of him trapped in enemy territory during war amongst the dead (and suffering) come to the surface. A flashback shows a dying friend explaining to Grof that the only way to escape the clutches of a whirlpool would be to allow it to drag you down to the bottom and then swim out of it. Fighting a whirlpool as it drags you down will only strengthen its grasp.

This is a nice way to guide the viewer to the point of it all. To that message which Bojan has chosen to express through The Whirlpool. Unlike Bogdan and Kale, Grof allows himself to feel and process his pain fully. He’s not trying to come out on top. He’s not attempting to direct his anger elsewhere. Instead, he lets himself be sucked into the void inside of him caused by anger, grief, empathy and sadness. He channelizes all of his emotion into his artwork, The Whirlpool. And when he’s finished, he finally lets go of his traumatic past.

If not for the director verbally spelling it out for me at the film festival, I doubt I’d have chanced upon this connecting thread holding the film’s three segments together. And without that, I wouldn’t have seen the point of a film that clearly has a purpose to be served. I remember abruptly encountering the credits and being left unanswered by the very questions raised by the film. The message seems to have gotten lost along the way.

The three segments work wonderfully in their own individual regards but fail to add up conclusively to a cohesive whole. This is why I believe Bojan wasn’t entirely successful in this ambitious endeavour.

Rating- 7/10.