Non-Aligned Spies: Secret Agents in the Yugoslav 1960s Cinema

Abstract

Through an analysis of three films (X-25 javlja/X-25 Reports, František Čáp, 1960; Kota 905/Point 905, Mate Relja, 1960; Abeceda straha/ABC of Fear, Fadil Hadžić, 1961) the article inquires into roles spy movies acquired within the Yugoslav cinema of the 1960s. On the one hand, spy films witness to a process of ‘genre-grafting’ highly symptomatic of the developments in the Yugoslav cinema of the period; on the other hand, however, they also introduce specific problems into this process: with Yugoslavia occupying a nonaligned position in the Cold War context, the metaphor of the ‘Iron Curtain’, largely fuelling the international spy genre of the 1960s, remained inaccessible to Yugoslav spies. Consequently, Yugoslav spy films not only systematically (re)turned to the context of World War II, but also, the ‘enemy within’ became the fundamental neuralgic point of their symbolic strategies. Through the spy’s infiltration, this enemy was then represented in ways which cannot be found in earlier war (partisan) films. The generic structure of the spy film combined with a position of non-alignedness therefore produced specific ideological effects within Yugoslav cinema. Taking film genre theory as its issuing point, this article attempts at offering an insight into this cluster of problems.

Keywords:

• Yugoslav cinema
• film genre
• war film
• spy film
• Cold War
• ideology

Disclosure statement

The author reports there are no competing interests to declare.

Filmography

Abeceda straha/ABC of Fear (YUG 1961, D: Fadil Hadžić)

Balkanski Špijun/Balkan Spy (YUG 1984, D: Dušan Kovačević)

Dvoje/And Love Has Vanished (YUG 1961, D: Aleksandar Petrović)

Kad mrtvi zapjevaju/When the Dead Start Singing (CRO 1998, D: Krsto Papić)

Kota 905/Point 905 (YUG 1960, D: Mate Relja)

Ples v dežju/A Dance in the Rain (YUG 1961, D: Boštjan Hladnik)

The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (UK 1965, D: Martin Ritt)

Torn Curtain (USA 1966, D: Alfred Hitchcock)

X-25 javlja/X-25 Reports (YUG 1960, D: František Čáp)