REVIEW - CLIP

It all comes down to where you seek solace. Jasna could seek it in her family, but what teenager would? Her family represents the origins of her troubles, her father terminally ill and her mother's tether at its very end. She could seek it in school, but what good is working hard for a hard future, eking out whatever living she can in working-class Belgrade? She seeks solace in the hedonism of adolescence, wearing out every available stream of self-indulgence, no matter what the cost. It's not worth admitting her love for her family, as her father promises only to die and her mother to nag. Alcohol may make her vomit over the bedsheets, but at least it makes her drunk. Coke may make her addicted, but at least it makes her high. Her boyfriend controls her, and barely even likes her, but at least he makes her come. She may grow up to learn the extent of the consequences she has wreaked upon herself - indeed, she is possibly being confronted with them now - but why bother to care until there's no alternative but to? What an impression Isidora Simijonovic makes as Jasna, an acting debut of among the highest quality that I have seen. Writer-director Maja Milos creates spaces in which the camera doesn't seem to exist - it is just an extension of the perspectives of the characters it observes, and the use of mobile phone recordings pronounces this further. Her touch is delicate and deft, bringing an appropriate air of candour and realism to the hard-hitting events depicted - appropriate because Clip serves as an antidote to cinema's sugar-coated view of teenage life. If Milos has a point to make, it's not a judgement on Jasna. It's a judgement on those who wish to see otherwise. There's more truth in this film than in almost any other you'll see this year.