Mare

Bored housewife to Dubrovnic airport guard (Goran Navojec) and mother to their children, Mare (Marija Skaricic) feels that her life is parked at more than the edge of the neighbouring runway. As each plane disappears from view, Mare’s weddedness to her current life seems to go with them until a new arrival moves into the property next door…

…is a story of thwarted escape and desperate ambition.

Tied to her role as housewife and mother, ‘Mare’ is a story of thwarted escape and desperate ambition. Trampled over by her oafish husband Djuro as played by Goran Navojec, actress Marija Skaricic from 2006’s ‘Fraulein‘ pulls a genuinely engaging performance out of director Andrea Staka‘s atmospheric script. That said, whilst ‘Mare’ is a very handsomely shot and well-acted tale of marital deception, its kitchen-sink drama is badly starved of believable motivation. Easily beguiled by a one-off encounter with Mateusz Kosciukiewicz’s Piotr, their chance liaison becomes the unbelievable catalyst for sex at the behest of the script more than Mare’s dissatisfaction.

So, skipping over that unbelievable, emotional speed-bump (also as seen in the clunky mechanics of ‘Lady Macbeth‘), deceit is firmly on the dinner table and the scenes that follow all have a reasonably engaging inevitability to them. Yet, when ‘Mare’s’ ending comes, it comes out of nowhere, as does its end credits. Choosing not to linger on its reasonably thought-provoking conclusion, ‘Mare’ becomes a film that runs out of the gate with more than several scenes missing, all of which would have enhanced the fine efforts of its cast. 

Shorn of either the necessary budget or missing pages of script, this is one earth-bound drama could have flown had it been afforded another twenty minutes of screen time. Sadly, like Mare’s life itself as seen in retrospect, some things just aren’t meant to be.