Marjanović’s opus would not be so meaningful today had he not become a
domestic predecessor of David Attenborough and, together with his patient
cinematographers, rummaged through the curiosities of flora and fauna.

After WW II, during his travels through Croatia, one Czech filmmaker warned
Branko Marjanović: «If you are not with them, you should not be here». By “them”
he meant the Communist regime, with which Marjanović had no formal (member of
the Communist party) or personal (shared worldviews) connection. Marjanović,
production manager of Hrvatski Slikopis at the time of the Independent State of
Croatia, director of Ustasha’s propaganda documentary film Straža na Drini, (in
1942, it won an award at the Venice biennale), and the director and editor of
the first Croatian sound feature film Lisinski, was not closely connected to the
former regime, either (his father Milan Marjanović was extremely
pro-Yugoslavian). He was saved from the war pogrom by the fact that in the
“incriminating” period he had done some big favors for the partisans (among
other, he saved the film technique from the retreating German forces).

Did it pay off then to stay with “them”? At first, it seemed that it would be
possible to live under the Communist regime. Marjanović, one of the few
professionals among film amateurs and dilettantes, was praised and won awards
for his feature film debut Zastava. However, his next film, satirical Ciguli
Miguli, ended up in a bunker (it was first shown in 1977). The reason for that
was probably the screenwriter Joza Horvat’s premature hope that the Russian type
of social realism had ended in this area. Marjanović directed only one more
feature film, the partisan omnibus Opsada, which seemed hopelessly old-fashioned
especially in comparison with Branko Bauer’s Ne okreći se sine from the same
year. Therefore, the critics’ fury was more than understandable.

In each of Marjanović’s feature films there are interesting parts
(especially intriguing is the first story of the omnibus Opsada, which is a
Croatian version of Reed’s The Fugitive), but his distance from the obviously
imposed plots, his lack of interest for the protagonists, and the narrative
stiffness are a burden that lower the value of each of his works. Today, his
opus would not be so meaningful had he not, (when he began to be regarded as
obsolete in feature film), become a domestic predecessor of David Attenborough
and, together with his patient cinematographers, rummaged through the
curiosities of flora and fauna. The shorter form of a documentary film suited
him much more, and he seemed to get along better with animals, birds, and
fishes, than with actors. By nature a distrustful filmmaker, closed in his
editing room he perfected films that often culminated with scenes portraying a
fight for survival – in caves, and on cliffs and sea bottoms. His last film Nema
milosti is a lucid programmatical work in which the camera moves away to show
the three heroes charging each other on an, by the director, improvised
battlefield. His film Otok, čovjek, krš is one of the most ruthless portrayals
of man’s exploitation of nature. If somebody had called him the biggest
misanthrope of Croatian cinematography, Marjanović would most probably answer
that the history and his own life have not taught him anything better. (Nenad
Polimac)