One often encounters the (admittedly lazy) critical idea that a particular film “would’ve been better as a short,” suggesting that whatever ideas or formal attributes are present simply cannot support a feature-length runtime. Less common is the opposite reaction, a short film that is so rich, so engrossing, that one wishes it were substantially longer. Such is the case with Ivan Marković’s Inventory, a remarkable 20-minute documentary that teases out an entire history of a place with virtually no dialogue or characters, just a series of mesmerizing images. An end title card gives us some contextual information; the Sava Centar, a gargantuan modernist structure in Belgrade, was completed in 1978 as a cultural center and congress for hosting international meetings. After the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the ‘90s, the building was largely neglected by the state for decades and finally privatized in 2020. After a few false starts, the reconstruction process that we witness in Marković’s film began in earnest. There are brief glimpses of archival footage provided by Stojan Maksimovic, the architect of Sava Centar, who passed away last year, but otherwise Inventory eschews standard documentary form for a more experimental, experiential approach.
Marković has assembled the film into what appear to be “movements” of a sort; it begins with a series of shots that emphasize the lines of the interiors and how they cut through and across the frame. A lingering shot of closed blinds is juxtaposed with large, swooping cloth drapes that extend from floor to ceiling across glass panes. Another shot is simply dozens and dozens of desks stacked on top of one another, followed by a long close-up of what looks like elaborate rebar piping crisscrossing a ceiling. It’s all very quiet and carefully composed, as if these are all sculptural spaces containing found objects. Slowly, human figures appear, finally giving a sense of scale to the place. Now the film’s emphasis becomes the slow, repetitive nature of manual labor; hands scrape up tiling and carpet, while metal pipes and other debris are tossed down stairs into a pile. We see one young man take off his shoe and pick at a blister, before another person comes over and begins to assist him. Brief interstitial shots of old black-and-white photographs show the building when originally under construction, as well as a photo of a group of young workers. There’s a sort of historical narrative here, something about how the young bear the brunt of this sort of labor, as well as the march from Communism to neo-liberalism. It’s not progress necessarily, but an ongoing cycle of creation, destruction, and resurrection. What was once a monument to collective planning — the original building was heralded at the time for being completed in a record amount of time — is now a performance hall only for those wealthy enough to attend.
Published as part of Cinéma du Réel 2025.
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