Ordeal 1945 Draft script for feature film Author: Anton Tomažič
1. Introduction This film is to be both richly emotional, and something uniquely melding the relationship between content and form. It is intended for a wide, global audience, though written especially for patriots abroad with all too little familiarity with the criminal post-war executions and killings on the territory of Slovenia immediately at the end of The Second World War. Importantly, the message to foreign viewers is also how the British played a role as virtual accomplices in the mass killings (both knowing and unknowing), in surrendering the Home Guards to the murdering Partisans under Tito's command. The stylistic presentation of the film itself leads the interest of the viewers so that the story unfolds closely, secondarily as it progresses. It presents heavily naturalistic, cruel and bloody scenes. The most emotional impression is achieved primarily by the express leveraging of the following elements: CINEMATOGRAPHY: Photographic sequences in which Macro imagery predominates; a prominence of low to high EQ band buzzing, often for example accentuating pupils of the eye, drops of sweat, and blood; along also with the changing pace of the imagery, from varied slow motion to accelerated loops. MUSIC: thematically written, with some sequences also in complete silence. SET DESIGN: Precise representations of scenery at the end of the 2nd World War II; filmed particularly in the Northwestern countryside of Slovenia, near the Julian Alps, along the borders of Tuscany, Italy and Austria’s Carinthia; and finally, throughout the Karavanke, Kranj, Šentvid, Ljubljana, Kočevski regions.
1