“The life is not a difficult or serious thing as we are used to imagine. One should look at the life in a happy way, and give pleasure to the audience, make them laugh, otherwise you can’t bring people to theatres even if you beat them. The strongest influence of the film should be used to show the beauty and joy of the life. I am a very depressive person, and I mostly want to help people to get rid of sad ideas,” says Emir Kusturica, a musician, film producer and head of the community of a Serbian small town Kustendorf. The Armenian audience had an opportunity to meet him on March 5. For the first time he performed with his “The No Smoking Orchestra” in Armenia. He also met with the president, prime minister, Catholicos and visited the Genocide museum, Brady factory. In other words, he did everything that is usually planned for high official visits.
Being one of the brightest representatives of the European film, Emir Kusturica says that both the films and music he creates are old-fashioned. “My music stays beyond the modern music for about 100 years. What can we do? I am like that, and I am doing what I want. I believe the music has therapeutic influence. It is a specific hypnosis, that is why I like the views of Gurdjiev,” he says. The No Smoking Orchestra is not trying to say a new word in the music; it simply successfully mixes different styles and music. And the musicians are not only singing on the stage but dancing and jumping. In a word they want to deliver pleasure.
“I like eclecticism, the early rock and roll was like that too,” says Kusturica. People compare the music of Kusturica’s orchestra with toys that are spread in different places, which are turning into beautiful compositions. The No Smoking Orchestra is the author of Kusturica’s “Black cat, white cat” and “The life is a miracle” music. In these films one can see the mixture of the folklore and rock, which praises the free and happy life.
Kusturica says he is not able to create commercial movies and is always trying to find a compromise between arts and commerce: “The film production develops very strange now. When I start thinking about the development of the film production, I remember about Steven Spielberg. When people ordered a painter to paint a portrait for them in the Middle Ages, the painter clearly knew who the client was and where he was going to hang the portrait. “Sometimes even the painter visited the client’s place to see how his living was. Does not Spielberg wander who is watching his films and whether there are idiots and foolish people among them? As fewer people watch my movies than the movies of Spielberg, I hope there are fewer idiots among the people who like my films.”
Kusturica is not only free in his words, but looks for freedom in others as well. When he is asked questions about Karabakh he speaks about the history of the conflicts of Yugoslavia and believes it describes the conflict of Karabakh best.
“All nations have their mythologies. For example, the US creates its mythology according to the example of Ancient Rome and gets very nervous when it sees that other nations want to build their own mythologies. Small nations have only one way to work it out; they should strengthen their national mythology. And it should be done in parallel with the American one. Globalization erases national differences and I think the new concept of the planet should be the unity of small nations,” he said.
Kusturica generally likes to surround his life with myths. By a strange harmony the myths he creates are becoming reality. Even more, he has grown up in a Muslim family, but later was baptized as a Christian (he made that decision when his mother was dying). His native Saraevo city was bombed during the war, and he lost his house. However, after making “The life is wonderful” movie he established a village named Kustendorf in the forest line connecting Saraevo and Zagreb. The ideas of home, family and nation have mixed and become community cosmopolitism. “I am a cosmopolitan, who has his own city. I have drawn the plan and built my city myself. It is like a wooden Serbian city of the Middle Ages. Even though the city has been built in a forest and does not have a history, many people believe it has existed for a long time. When I decided to build my own village, I understood that I did not want democracy. In a normal city the citizens would elect a community head, but in Kustendorf it is the vice versa and the community head decides who can live there.” Every year there is a film festival in Kustendorf, and often Kusturica’s friends visit the village and the streets become a film production arena. This place is an open place for creating, where often people watch movies, organize discussions and summits. Such events don’t concern the movie production only, but ecology, physics, city construction and nuclear weapons. Kusturica says the Serbian people are very like the heroes of the stories of Chekhov, i.e. they like to imagine and dream, but when it comes to acting, they prefer to hear advises of others.
Certainly the visit of such a famous artist is not only connected with arts but it has also a state importance. Kusturica, who is very clever and handsome, is very scrupulous to the selection of visits (for example, recently he refused to visit a film festival in Kiev) and prefers to visit small but interesting countries. “The interest brought me to Armenia,” he says. By the way, he says the rumors that Russia has ordered to make a film about Ossetia are not true. “It was only a joke; I am not ready for such film. Generally I think that all the small nations on the planet should unite as almost all of them have the same problem. For example, for me Armenia seemed to be an exotic place, but when I started to collect information, I understood that the Armenian and Serbian nations have a lot of similarities. You are in an isolated geographical location; we are in the same situation and occupy a small spot under the European window. You have seen a genocide, and we know what it is too because a lot of Serbian people were massacred during the WWII. We have had the same path of history and the same enemies. Maybe that is the reason why Armenians like my film and music. By the way, I believe it is better to be famous in Armenia than be famous in America. I am happy to come to Armenia. Believe me that these are not mere words, I feel really happy,” he said.
Kusturica likes the film, music and football. He says Maradona is a hero of the age. He has made not only a film about this famous Argentinean football player but also believes that with his plays and goals Maradona kicked England. “Maradona is my god,” he says.
Kusturica actively struggles against the active “attacks” of the American arts type. “America tried to make arts a science, and the best example of it is the pop-arts, which was an attempt to change the nature of arts. Now small nations need in real arts, and the Americans made the arts like a video game and involved us in that too,” he said in Yerevan. He does not send his films to the Oscar to judge about the films as he believes the best foreign films nomination has been created by the US special services. “Hollywood and the American films are a tool to push the American ideology forward. Why should I take part in the Oscar show? I am a representative of the small nations, and I don’t care whether I will get an American nomination or no.”
Kusturica says that more than the film and music he prefers architecture. He is going to publish a book consisting of 12 stories. “Now we will finish our press conference and I will go to finish one of my stories,” he said. In this story Kusturica wants to change his skin with a bear’s skin. “It is a real story. When I had to live in France as a result of the Balkans war, I learnt that the bears were not even allowed to return to their fatherland as the borders had been closed.”
Kusturica struggles against close borders and says, “If the border is open today, tomorrow there will be huge migration flows, which you may dislike. I mean there can’t be an ideal situation. In both cases there are strongest weapons, which can help to keep the characteristics of the nation. It is the belief and arts. There is no stronger weapon so far.” Kusturica advises all the representatives of small nations to pay more attention to education. Of course the arts that give joy are a very good thing, but it is happy only if it is backed by experience and ideology. “In order the TV viewers can continue the idea of film producers, it is important that the producer not only gets an idea but he should also be impressed by such idea. In this case the film will get an opportunity to get life,” says Kusturica.