SUICIDE GUIDE (Ñàìîóíèøòóâàœå)
Movie from: 1996
Duration: 97 minutes
Director: Erbil Altanaj
Screenplay: Sashko Nasev
Leading Roles: Katerina Kocevska, Jovica Mihajlovski, Jelena Mijatovic, Oliver Mitkovski
Content: The movie, "Suicide Guide" is an urban tragi-comedy the theme of which is the falling apart of the family, the crises
of the individual connected to the spirit of the of time in which the action takes place, even though it is a family moral drama, which can
be placed in any other time or place, and in this case it happens in one Skopje suburb and it happens now. It is a story about Kuplung
(Clutch) a taxi driver, a man with no moral prejudices, a thug and a lover, a man who respects his passion only. He treats his wife Stojna,
a factory worker, as if she were his property, so she, slavishly obedient, fulfills his requests and stands his rough and redneck behavior.
Kole, his son, is a student. He is also maltreated by his father, who feels neither fatherly love nor obligations to. The only weak point of
Kuplung is his mistress, Sheila, a bar singer who marries the police inspector, Stojna’s brother. It is then that Kuplung is out of life’s
balance, but he immediately searches for a new sexual object. The victim is his son’s girlfriend, Vilma, a naive and rather stupid girl who
after being raped by Kuplung, becomes his lover. In this secret relationship she gets pregnant. In a scene of violence of Kuplung over
Stojna, Kole attacks his father and Kuplung becomes disabled, tied to a wheelchair. Kole marries Vilma. She delivers a boy. Stojna continues
to slavishly tolerate the destiny burdened with new difficulties.
Resume: "Self-destruction" is a movie of Macedonian production that was a co-production with a partner from Turkey. It can be
classified as a neo-classical co-production. "Self-destruction", one of the first movies based on this model, became a symptomatic example
of the pros and cons of such a production. The movie was based on the scenario of young Macedonian playwright Sashko Nasev, and was directed
by Erbil Altanaj, a guest director from Turkey. The basic story is one of existence. It focuses on the character of a taxi driver nicknamed
Kuplung (Clutch.) He is the central figure, who moves through the movie like a mechanized humanoid, while the rest of the characters are
more or less realistically conceptualized. The character is violent to his wife, deceives his brother in law, ignores his son and eventually
rapes his son's girlfriend. He then also suffers. The story incorporates an unconvincing episode with a singer, whom he more or less loves,
but she ignores him and marries his brother in law. Naturally, this is a structure of dramaturgy, on which a total moral and physical
degradation of the central character is built.
In any case, the great acting efforts of the talented Jovica Mihajlovski in the role of Kuplung are in vain. As far as the other actors are
concerned, it seems that they have a subordinate role in the frame of the total story. The counterbalance character of, Stojna, the wife,
played by Katerina Kocevska is generally fair and convincing. Other actors include the young Oliver Mitkovski in the role of Cole, the
neglected son of Kuplung, Silvia Erac, as Vilma, Cole's girlfriend and Blagoja Chorevski as the brother in law. The film also includes
refreshing episodes of Toni Mihajlovski, Valentina Bozhinovska, and Bajrush Mjaku. According to some critics, the artistic team is one of
the wild cards of the film "Self-destruction."
The story has a stressed urban character. The ugliness of the action takes place in an unidentified Skopje suburb. It is these parts of the
motion picture that bring about the sense and atmosphere of dramatic authenticity. An authenticity rarely achieved in a Macedonian
production. The scenographic solutions of Robert Pashoski, as well as the well-balanced costume designs of Nevenka Taseva support the urban
character of the story very well. One must not forget that the film's musical score, composed by Vlatko Stefanovski, adds quality to the
phonoplastic level of the film. The movie was filmed by Sinan Gjungjer, who managed to put the camera in a subordinate, static relation to
the other elements of the film. Consequent to that are the editing solutions of Mevlut Kochak and Demir Kesman, who could not otherwise
articulate this undoubtedly important segment of "Self-destruction."
Sources: Macedonian Cinema Information Center and Cinemateque of Macedonia.
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