Popcorn Frights Film Festival Coverage
Videoteka review
An anthology that sets out to teach a criminal a lesson or three.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers
Videoteka
Directed by Luka Bursac
Written by Luca Bursac
Starring Sonja Vukicevic, Igor Bencina, Bogdan Farcas, Zoran Cvijanovic, Miona Markovic, Relja Popovic and Milos Samolov
Videoteka Review
Videoteka is a Serbian anthology film with light horror elements. Its short stories aim to teach a lesson to the criminal watching them. That’s about all that ties them together. Well…that and the consistent level of quality that comes from the singular vision provided by having one writer/director for the entire package.
Anthologies with one creative force generally carry the same positive and negative. On the plus side, you usually get a more consistent tone. No need to worry about everyone being on the same page, after all. The downside is that it robs an anthology of the opportunity for a true breakout segment. With anthologies…you’re mostly taking the bad with the good. It’s often worth some rough moments to get to a standout story. Videoteka doesn’t have that standout story. It also doesn’t have a wild shift from bad to good and back again.
Luckily, writer/director Luka Bursac takes care to offer three different kinds of stories inside of Videoteka. Each flows a bit too slowly…but they’re all gorgeously shot. He even delivers a decent framing story to contain his three shorts. If you’ve read any of our other anthology reviews…you’ll know how difficult it is to create a framing story worth caring about.
Bursac starts his framing story off with a bang. A strange man is loitering outside of a building when he is stopped by the police. Another man quietly exits that building and makes his way past the officers. Just when it seems the second man will make it out unbothered…a woman runs out and yells that she has been robbed. The thief runs as the loitering man draws his gun and shoots the officers. The shooter is eventually captured. The thief hides out inside a video store. What better way to pass the time than to watch some videos?
It’s a somewhat elegant way to explain why we are watching three seemingly disconnected stories. It also provides the only narrative connection between the shorts presented. There are warnings for the thief inside these stories. And for us too, I suppose.
Without further ado…let’s rank the three segments inside of Videoteka from the bottom to the top like we always do.
3. Balanar (segment 1)
The opening segment of Videoteka is gorgeous to look at. It’s a slice of folk horror. What it’s drawing from…I have no idea. A traveler struggles to make his way across an ice-covered land. Balanar has the appearances of a survival story…but there is something much darker lurking beneath its surface. The man comes across an old man and his blind daughter. They take him in, feed him, and give him shelter.
Balanar is very well made. It ranks at the bottom of the pile because it’s harder to connect to than the other two segments. It is an interesting piece of business that turns bloody and ends with some moments of true horror that the rest of Videoteka struggles to match. Ranking third speaks to the consistency of the overall anthology.
2. Dubai (segment 2)
The middle segment in Videoteka fittingly falls in the middle of its quality rankings. This is an anthology that gets (slightly) better as it goes along. A young man with a decent life wants something more. When he comes across an old wealthy (and evil) businessman…he is quickly seduced by the lifestyle. He gets more than he bargained for when he wakes up in the old man’s body.
Dubai is, like Balanar before it, a bit slow. We don’t get to the body swap until surprisingly late in the story. The short gives us a good look at the life the young man is eager to change. He has everything most people would want…but he wants more. It’s a clear “be careful what you wish for” fable…but it’s a good one. In fact, Dubai is one of two segments that could have easily been fleshed out into a full feature length film. It leaves enough fun on the table to justify a longer runtime.
1. The Prophecy of the Kupres (segment 3)
The final segment of Videoteka should have been its own movie. It crafts the deepest story of the set. A cop investigating a series of murders navigates his own personal demons. The Prophecy of the Kupres has a lot going on. The cop is an interesting, dark, character. Even a big moment of heroism feels wrong somehow. He’s a fascinating anti-hero type that would benefit from a longer story to star in.
The Prophecy of the Kupres is a murder mystery combined with a character study. The cop is distant from his pregnant wife. He’s also a bit of a creep when it comes to a young woman who finds herself in the path of the killer. The story takes an interesting angle on the detective noir concept. The cop may not be the bad guy…but he clearly isn’t the good guy either. A memorable character in a surprisingly layered short story. It also features the best moment of gore in all of Videoteka.
Scare Value
Two of Videoteka‘s three segments would work as an extended feature film. The third is a beautiful piece of horror fiction that is the right length. Even the framing story here is a worthwhile experiment. The singular vision of writer/director Luka Bursac allows the overall package to flow together…even if it moves too slowly at times. There is no clear high in the anthology…but the lowest point has a fairly high floor. Some quality work with light horror elements at best.
