The White Fortress

The White Fortress is a startling, hypnotizing, but above all haunting work destined to linger.

The film is both a love story and a lament for the city where the director grew up.

The sad, wise heart of Drljača’s small, impressively controlled film condemns neither of them, but instead understands what horror stories and fairytales have in common: both are narratives in which the characters have no control, and are instead propelled by forces far bigger than they are, toward destinies they were born into that they cannot avert.

Drljača’s dialogue is sharp and alive throughout the film, particularly so during Mona and Faruk’s first date.

Does it lose focus from time to time? Sure, and its cumulative effect suffers because of it, but Drljača nails the little moments that matter.

A walk through the woods is thus the scenario that brings up the two genres. Mona sees promise and excitement being alone with Faruk while he sees the shadowy unknown harboring monsters ready to pounce. The film ultimately exposes that neither is true thanks to Drljaca’s decision to keep things firmly rooted in the uncertain volatility of reality—these teens crossing paths creating as much room for strife as joy in the grand scheme of things.

Drljaca gives this simple story just enough melodrama to get by, and frankly it could have used more. But it is an engrossing portrait of romance in a beautiful place not-that-many-decades removed from a genocidal civil war.