Miloš approached her, his camera off. “What’s the real story, Saveta? Of this place?”
The film crew arrived in a cloud of white dust, a convoy of two rusty Fiats and a van. They had come from Belgrade to make a film about "the dying spirit of the old ways." The director, a young man with a beard and round glasses named Miloš, had read a book about Petrijin venac. He saw it as poetry. Saveta saw it as Tuesday.
“Gospođo Saveta,” Miloš said, holding his clipboard like a shield, “we want to film you drawing water from the dry well. For the metaphor.” Petrijin venac -1980-
And that was the film Miloš never intended to make. For the next two days, the Belgrade crew—sound man, camerawoman, script girl—did chores. They picked beans until their fingers bled. They hauled water from the new well two miles down the road. They patched the chicken coop with scrap tin. And while they worked, Saveta talked.
Saveta laughed. It was a dry, hacking sound, like a tractor trying to start in winter. “Authentic? You want authentic? The last authentic kolo on this hill was danced in 1944, to celebrate the Germans leaving. My grandmother broke her hip. We didn’t have a doctor. She walked with a limp for thirty years. That’s your dance.” Miloš approached her, his camera off
Miloš wanted authenticity. He asked Jela to spin wool on a spindle that hadn’t turned since the war. Jela, who had a sly grin and a bottle of rakija hidden in her apron, spun it backwards while singing a song about a partisan who couldn’t find his own horse. Miloš filmed it gravely, calling it "deconstructionist folklore."
Saveta spat a sunflower seed shell onto his suede shoe. “The well has been dry since ’73. You want a metaphor? Film my tongue. It’s the only thing here that’s still wet.” They had come from Belgrade to make a
“What will they put in their film?” Jela asked.