The series will surely provoke fierce controversy because the opening of graves is actually a metaphor for digging through the cancerous wounds of Croatian society.
After several months of struggle, HTV finally included the series "Rest in Peace" in the program. The slot is not bad, Friday at 9.45 pm on the First Program, where the first season of "Boardwalk Empire" has been shown so far, but the question remains why we had to wait so long for a drama product that is among the most interesting that HTV has broadcast so far. We may never find out if the project was too provocative for someone or the reason is banaler (the series was ordered by HTV's team which was then fired, and a new one was looking for a hair in the egg to prove that the predecessors didn't do their job well). Procrastination is more absurd if we know that our drama program has been dying out for years, and when a series of this caliber appears, HTV members, no matter what lobby or clan they belong to, should embrace it as a first-class sensation. The series "Rest in Peace" was produced by the production company Ring Multimedia on behalf of HTV, but its previous programs (its most successful soap opera "Valley of the Sun") did not really prepare us for such a surprise. The first synopsis was written by Koraljka Meštrović and Goran Rukavina, the head of the team that wrote the scripts for each of the 12 episodes was Saša Podgorelec, and the well-known young playwright Ivor Martinić and Ivan Turković Krnjak also collaborated with him. Rukavina and Kristijan Milić were chosen as directors (he won the Golden Arena in Pula for the war drama "The Living and the Dead") and the director of photography Mario Sablić often collaborated with Ring Multimedia (he also recorded last year's hit "Koko and the Ghosts").
Almost the entire Croatian acting cream was cast in 170 speech roles, but the best opportunities were given to Judita Franković from "Sonja and the Bull" and Miodrag Krivokapić, once a big star of Croatian theater, who moved to Belgrade in the early 1990s. Our leading animator Simon Bogojević Narath made an impressive opening credit. The main virtue of the series is that it rests on the original premise: it is not an adaptation of any foreign genre model, but an ingenious format perfect for licensing in other transition countries that have gone through similar historical upheavals as Croatia. The plot begins today, when the editor Zdeslav (Boris Svrtan) orders young television journalist Lucija Car (Franković) to make a seemingly routine report on the closure of the Vukovšćak penitentiary: our country's accession to the European Union is approaching, and the prison does not meet modern European standards (Vukovšćak, of course, does not exist, but a similar fate will threaten our actual prisons).
Lucija's attention is drawn to the improvised cemetery in the yard of Vukovščak, so she is intrigued by who is buried in it. She learns that these are prisoners whose bodies no one wanted to take over or who had no family. When a rag doll falls out of a coffin, and it turns out that a certain Zdenko Jurković (Dragan Despot) faked his own death in this way, Lucija seems to have discovered a great sensation. Her editor doesn't think so either, but the resourceful girl is ready to embark on this venture even without his approval. However, she needs something more important, and that is an "insider" who knew the prison and its "tenants" well. She fraudulently manages to obtain prison files, but the names mentioned in it mean nothing to her. However, retired prison guard Martin Strugar (Krivokapić), who is not willing to cooperate with her at first, but later changes his mind knows those names well. The story takes place on two levels: in the first, Lucija competes with Martin, who wants to keep a lot of things quiet, supported by her college colleague Željko Ban (Luka Dragić), now a spokesman for the Ministry of the Interior, but her boyfriend, promising politician Boris Drobnjak (Ozren Grabarić), is not thrilled with her investigation. At the same time, the girl is constantly receiving threatening text messages and other unpleasant warnings, which she assumes come from Jurković: he used to work for the Yugoslav secret agency UDBA, and now has a powerful protector in the Croatian political leadership.
In each episode, the fate of one of the prisoners buried in the cemetery is revealed. Some got there during socialism, such as the young communist Marko Glavina (Ivan Glowatzky), who hoped to be received by Tito, but instead got stuck in prison because he had the same name and surname as a political emigrant. Young Lola (Lana Vukićević) ended up in prison for a minor offense, but the prison guardian Josipa (Nada Gaćešić Livaković) started tricking her with other convicts. Predrag Bogojević (Janko Popović Volarić) was a respectable restaurant owner until the war, but suddenly his Serbian origin in the new Croatian state became a problem: he paid protection to prison guards in vain, other prisoners used every opportunity to make a living, and his family renounced for reckless adultery. Saleswomen Dijana Marić (Ksenija Marinković) and Sara Rogoz (Sandra Lončarić Tankosić) realized that they could not live on a salary in a supermarket, so when they already live in a society where everyone steals, they also decided to rob the post office - unfortunately, an amateur attempt cost is high: freedom. The successful Zagreb Roma (Aleksandar Cvjetković) became friend with Martin, but the skinheads started harassing him and he took revenge on them, which cost him dearly.
The series will surely provoke fierce controversy because the opening of graves is actually a metaphor for digging through the cancerous wounds of Croatian society. Some of the scenes are embarrassingly explicit, such as the one showing how police beatings have not changed at all since the socialist era. It reveals the corruption of politicians, the connection between the media and the government, shameless enrichment, xenophobia, and much more.
If that seems intriguing enough to you, start watching a series that seems to have nothing to do with our television products: hopefully, it won’t be the only one of its kind.