LEPTIRICA
aka The Butterfly
Dir. Djordje Kadijevic, 1973
Yugoslavia, 63 min.

FRIDAY, MAY 1 – 7:30 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 5 – 10 PM
TUESDAY, MAY 12 – 7:30 PM
FRIDAY, MAY 29 – 10 PM

LEPTIRICA (aka THE BUTTERFLY) is a Yugoslavian horror classic. Still lauded as the first horror film in the former Yugoslavia, it is based on a story by Serbian writer Milovan Gislic, “After 90 Years”, which drew heavily on Serbian folklore to create one of the earliest modern renderings of the vampire myth in Europe, 17 years even before Bram Stoker had written Dracula. The film’s director Djordje Kadijevic, instead of conforming to horror trends of United States and Western Europe did Gislic’s story justice by adhering closely to the style and tropes of Slavic folktale. Accompanied by Milovan Trikovic’s haunting score of dissonantly tonal Balkan choral music, the film reinforces its geographic identity within the mythological narratives of fear that inhabit the mountainous forests of Southeastern Europe.

In the film, yet another in a string of dead millers is discovered violently murdered in the village of Zarodjani after having spent one night in a famously cursed local mill. The desperate towsnmen fearing starvation if the mill ceases to work, recruit a local youth, Strahinja, to brave a night under its roof. Strahinja in an attempt to impress Radojka, a shepherd’s daughter, accepts the challenge. After Strahinja manages to survive an attack by the same creature, the men of the village haphazardly band together to attempt to seek out and destroy the dead man, Sava Savonovic, they suspect is responsible for the nocturnal marauding.

Kadijevic’s LEPTIRICA with its bright 1970’s color palette and the ever-present death-knell of the choral singers looming over the unfortunate lovers ends up lying somewhere between comedy, horror and dark Slavic fairy tale. Yet while the film manages to evoke a communist-era Grimm fairy tale, unlike the Grimms, Yugoslavians somehow always manage to find humor in the face of death.