REVIEW: The Cover Story (Naslovnica, 2014)

THE COVER STORY

(NASLOVNICA)

A Film Review

Copyright Dragan Antulov 2016

Croatians these days don’t go to cinema much. When they do, it is usually due to some big Hollywood blockbuster, some over-hyped populist comedy or childen’s film that serves as good excuse for a family to visit shopping malls. Documentaries are the least likely genre to get average viewer’s attention in such state of affair. Croatian filmmakers are even less likely to do so, and that is hardly surprising, considering what Croatian film industry used to deliver to big screens in last quarter of century. So, having Croatian documentary as part of regular cinema repertoire is preciously rare occurrence which requires something extraordinary to happen. This being Croatia, an extraordinary thing is more likely to be something extraordinarily bad that extraordinarily good. And the extraordinarily bad thing is exactly what happened to the makers of The Cover Story.

The author of the film is Silvana Menđušić, Croatian journalist and former television repoter, who, among other things, used to be an editor of Gloria, country’s most popular women’s magazine. In her directorial debut she chose a subject close to her work – modern media and their, at times symbiotic, at other times abusive, relationship with celebrities and the way trivial stories and gossip take public attention away from more important subjects like politics and economy. Menđušić had the idea to tell this story from the perspective of one of Croatian tabloids’ favourite subjects. Dolores Lambaša was 32-year old actress who became famous by appearing in Croatian soap operas; she maintained her celebrity status due to her personal life or series of stormy romances, mostly with her male colleagues who were also few decades her senior. In small and, in recent times increasingly conservative, country, such lifestyle was perfect tabloid fodder but also brought many risks of making celebrity’s life miserable. Menđušić tried to portray such trials and tribulations by portraying a year in life of Dolores Lambaša, who apparently saw the project as an opportunity to present the public with more private and more authentic version of herself.

That was the idea. The life had something different in store for filmmakers. On October 23rd 2013 Lambaša was traveling at Belgrade-Zagreb highway in the company of her collague Stojan Matavulj. The car drove off the road and overturned. Matavulj survived, Lambaša didn’t. This tragic event brought another, macabre dimension of celebrity to Lambaša, but also faced Menđušić with a dilemma – whether to abandon or continue her project. She chose the latter option and documentary premiered few months later, apparently in much shortened form than originally planned.

The basic structure of The Cover Story is framed by the scenes shot shortly after Lambaša’s death. They are set in the newsroom of Story magazine and show how various reporters and editors try to make special edition dedicated to Lambaša and browse through apparently very rich archive of photographs made through the years. The main (and much larger) segment consists of footage Menđušić made few months before the accident which feature Lambaša. Some of those scenes show her working on her latest soap, dealing with various media, but also give a glimpse of her very personal life, including her own literary attempts, musings about career and apparent lack of culinary skills. Those scenes also show her increasingly frustrated with the way she is seen by Croatian public – as a “gold digger” and talentless social climber instead of serious professional actress. She tries to address this situation by talking to her friends and colleagues; some of them express frustration with apparent lack of serious opportunity and inability to pay bills by working in various provincial theatres and doing similar gigs. Lambaša apparently tries to turn another page in her professional career by appearing at stage and, before starting this new adventure, asks some of her older and more experienced colleagues for advice. Probably the most intriguing such sequence features aforementioned Matavulj who looks clearly agitated and provides some common sense words accompanied with series of profanities.

The Cover Story, even with specific circumstances of production taken into account, is a deeply flawed and utterly disappointing film. It is obviously unfinished and appears to be rushed into production for the sake of exploiting tragedy while it is fresh in minds of Croatian public. Menđušić, either afraid of controversy, lawsuits or accusations of sensationalism, fails to provide any meaningful context to her material. The viewers, unless they happened to be in Croatia in 2013 and had some familiarity to Lambaša and details of tragically short life, would completely fail to understand what was film about. Perhaps some day, probably in not so near future, footage made for The Cover Story will become part of more coherent and more comprehensive work that deals with Croatian media and society in the first decades of 21st Century. Until that happens, The Cover Story will not serve any purpose. Except as a warning to those few unfortunate Croatian cinemagoers who like to give a chance to Croatian documentary filmmakers.

RATING: 2/10