‘Mother Mara’: Sarajevo Review

Dir: Mirjana Karanovic. Switzerland/Slovenia/Serbia/Montenegro/Luxembourg/Bosnia and Herzegovina. 2024. 96mins.

Serbian star Mirjana Karanovic (Grbavica, When Father Was Away On Business) proves her impressive writing/directorial debut A Good Wife (2016) was no flash in the pan as she crafts another intriguing and complex role for herself. As Belgrade businesswoman Mara, who is struggling to find a way to grieve the death of her only child, 20-something Nemanja, she gets to shake up a bag of emotions and carefully pull each one out – if not necessarily one by one. A character study that explores the nature of defining yourself after loss, Mother Mara isn’t afraid to challenge societal cliches about middle-aged women along the way. 

Karanovic crafts another intriguing and complex role for herself

Based on elements of the two-hander play ’We Are The Ones Our Parents Warned Us About’ by Tanja Sljivar, it is opened out by Karanovic and her co-writers Maja Pelevic and Ognjen Svilicic beyond its theatrical origins. Premiering out of competition at Sarajevo Film Festival, this female-centric story should ensure travel well on the festival circuit, and Karanovic’s international profile and compelling performance could also help it catch the eye of other outlets.

Mara has a smartness that seems bone deep. Her wardrobe of wintry-toned clothing, bleached blonde curls and understated but effective make-up suggests a woman who means business, all of the time. Her luxurious home is also so cool and orderly it could have been clipped from a catalogue. Mara has gone to war on softness. Her house is all geometric edges, dominated by white, with the rippling blue of her pool visible through the glass window that runs along one wall of the living room, all captured with a chilly intensity by cinematographer Igor Marovic. The only warmer room is that which belonged to Nemanja, where the light is sallow but the clutter makes it feel lived in. 

As a single mother and businesswoman, life has evidently taught Mara not to be ruffled easily – which is perhaps why there is the merest physical flicker when Nemanja’s grandmother suggests, “It’s as if you were cursed” at his wake. She doesn’t need to return to work so quickly according to her boss Boris (Boris Isakovic, who co-starred in a much larger role in A Good Wife), but Mara carries on regardless. When 28-year-old client Milan (Vucic Perovic) turns up to ask for her professional help over a property matter, she discovers he knew her son and is drawn to him. 

What follows is a dual journey of discovery as Mara, who has also found Nemanja’s phone, begins to find out about another side to her boy, who may not have been taking such good care of his heart condition as she imagined. Lingering trauma from his death is carefully indicated by a recurrent dream while, at the same time, she finds her relationship with Milan developing in ways that invite her to explore aspects of herself. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly as an experienced actor, Karanovic avoids over-scripting in favour of delivering many of the film’s emotional manoeuvres via body language. Her directorial style is frank and she isn’t afraid to show Mara physically as well as emotionally naked. The portrait of Milan may be less complex, but the implication is that this is partially due to his youth. Perovic imbues him with a spontaneity and openness that Mara finds shocking to start with, but which acts as a catalyst to jolt her away from her status quo. Right up to its last shot, Karanovic’s film challenges us not just to look at Mara but to see past the carefully groomed surface to the more unruly emotional facets that lie beneath.