Vojvodina was, and in many ways still is, the ethnically most diverse area of what used to be Yugoslavia. Such areas tend to suffer greatly during conflicts, especially those where individuals pick sides exclusively on ethnic lines. It was no different during the Second World War, and the moral dilemmas and other aspects of such a situation are the subject of Hitler from Our Street, a 1975 Yugoslav drama directed by Vladimir Tadej.
The plot is set in a village in Banat, the eastern region of Vojvodina, which has an ethnically mixed population made up of South Slavs (mainly Serbs) and Volksdeutsche Germans. At the beginning of 1941 the area is part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and, as the war approaches, the once harmonious relations between the two communities become strained; many Volksdeutsche embrace the cause of Hitler’s Nazism. One of them is Leksi (played by Nikola Simić), a drunkard and loser who is frustrated both by his relative poverty and his inability to satisfy his attractive wife Anika (played by Ružica Sokić). In April 1941 Axis forces invade, crush the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and establish a new regime in Banat under the rule of the Volksdeutsche. Leksi becomes part of the local SS militia and uses his new privileged position to harass his Slav neighbours. After a few months, resistance activities lead the authorities to establish a brutal policy of shooting fifty Slav villagers for each German killed and twenty-five for each German wounded. Because of this, Leksi’s former friend Marko (played by Boris Dvornik) takes great effort to prevent Leksi from getting hurt. As the war goes on and an increasing number of Volksdeutsche get drafted for fighting on the Eastern Front, Leksi becomes concerned that he might end up there and begins to contemplate deliberately wounding himself in order to stay in the village. Marko, who in the meantime has begun an affair with Anika, wants to evade the ensuing massacre and offers Leksi a large amount of money and other goods in exchange for claiming that the wounding was the result of an accident.
Hitler from Our Street is in many ways atypical for Yugoslav films dealing with the Second World War. The Partisans, who were usually the protagonists and had their own genre, appear only briefly here, with their activities mostly serving as background and holding little importance for the general plot. The plot also deals with the Volksdeutsche Germans, a pre-war ethnic minority which was, as in many European countries, perceived as a Nazi fifth column and brutally cleansed from the country at the end of the war—an event somewhat difficult to reconcile with the official "Brotherhood and Unity" ideology of Communist Yugoslavia. Croatian director Vladimir Tadej and his co-writer Zoran Petrović, however, seem mostly interested in a character study, and Serbian actor Nikola Simić brilliantly plays the archetypal petty man who is suddenly transformed into the master of life and death of people who used to make fun of him. The script, very much like the similarly-themed 2000 Czech film Divided We Fall, tries to mix serious drama and an exploration of power dynamics under wartime conditions with some humour, but it mostly fails. Intended mostly for a Yugoslav audience with prior knowledge of the complicated WW2 history, Hitler from Our Street will be less comprehensible to outsiders and post-Yugoslav generations. Another major flaw is the introduction of an adulterous romance that only complicates the plot further. An attempt to evade ethnic stereotyping is made with the introduction of two boys – one Volksdeutsche and one Roma – who remain friends despite the former joining the Hitlerjugend. But this again only muddles the plot. The weakest part is the ending, when characters suddenly make the most irrational choices possible, leading to tragedy and an incredibly bleak resolution. In the end, Hitler from Our Street can be recommended only to viewers who are somewhat familiar with its fascinating and dark subject.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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