Mali vojnici (Playing Soldiers). 1967. Directed by Bahrudin Čengić . Written by Mirko Kovač. With Stole Aranđelović, Marika Tucanovska, Zaim Muzaferija. In Serbo-Croatian with English subtitles. DCP. 92 min.
Bahrudin Čengić is an aesthetician of revolution, a filmmaker of conscience who brings matters of political ideology to the foreground, particularly as they affect the most vulnerable, and specifically children. Simultaneously a breathtaking critique, a masterful slow-burner, and a pure psychological drama, Playing Soldiers, produced by Sarajevo’s Bosna Film, follows a young boy who arrives at an orphanage for children of partisans and those killed in the war. Knowing the boy’s parents to be Nazis, the headmaster conceals this past from the rest of the boys—but things take a significant turn when they find out and decide to put the boy on trial. Slated for Palme d’Or consideration at Cannes in 1968, when the festival was cancelled, Playing Soldiers puts memories of fascism and the legacy of communism in an entirely new light, and looks at what happens when normally innocent members of society decide to “play war.” Push Lord of the Flies to its existential limit and Čengić’s film is the haunting result.