Why "Rest in Peace" is one of the most interesting products of European television
Just take the scene from the ninth episode in which Kosta Mandić outsmarts Igla, sits on his dream motorcycle, flies on it from a study full of dusty files, breaks through the balcony, and performs one of the most spectacular suicides in the history of film and television.
The third season of the series "Rest in Peace" is certainly the bravest drama product we have had the opportunity to see on our small screens. If you are a less attentive viewer, who consumes several contents at once, you better not get into it. Some episodes mix the past and the present without any special announcement. Only after a while, you realize that you are in the nineties or the beginning of the millennium and only good memory of the actors' faces will help you cope with that unusual mosaic. If you've watched the series, you know that the main plot focuses on the murders of members of Zagreb's golden youth. Their fathers - all of them Croatian pillars of society - did not do what was required of them and the punishment came in the form of the liquidation of the dearest and most loved.
General Koretić (Dejan Aćimović), who entered the bottled water business after the Homeland War, the seemingly untouchable banker Bučević (Žarko Savić) prone to S/M sessions, the media tycoon Bedrica (Sreten Mokrović), who gladly receives services but is reluctant to return them equally, the judge of the Supreme Court Stančec (Damir Šaban) with a great character flaw - cowardice, and the Minister of War Urem (Dušan Gojić) who paid for his disobedience with the death of one of his daughters. The so-called Network is asking everyone for a special fee, their lawyer Halužan (Dražen Čuček) kindly threatens, but God forbid that the Network, instead of the lawyer, sends to disobedient the criminal Igla (Velibor Topić) or Žarko Paspa (Marinko Prga), a former UDBA agent, who is more dangerous after Croatia's independence than ever.
Lucija Car (Judita Franković), once a journalist and now an archivist on television, is involved in all this, leading investigations on her account, and probably God wouldn't know what she found out if she wasn't protected and informed by Paspa's archenemy Mate Šušnjara (Dragan Despot), his informant Kosta Mandić (Danko Ljuština) and lame boxer Miki (Slavko Štimac). The forces of the conflicting parties are not in balance, especially not in the end when it seems that the Network will definitely take the lead, but already in the middle of the tenth, the last episode, which was broadcast yesterday, the arrests of the corrupt begin.
But it may not turn out that way - the members of the Network were not demonstratively disabled or called out, there are many indications that the battle continues, Lucia's murder was even ordered, but as the creators of the series claim, there will be no fourth season, so draw your own conclusions about what will happen next. After all, if you follow through the media what is happening in Croatia today, do not have too many illusions, even though the younger generation politician Ana Srnec (Dijana Vidušić) believes that society can change for the better, and there are even younger activists of the movement "Enough!", who in the end have no idea that their protests saved Lucia's life. We were not spared lectures on why what happened in Croatia, how a new class was created, and how the unpleasant aspects of the transition may have been necessary, but I guess it is because the series was funded and broadcast by Croatian Television.
The third season will be remembered primarily for the excellent production that we have not seen on domestic screens for a long time. Just take the scene from the ninth episode in which Kosta Mandić outsmarts Igla, sits on his dream motorcycle, flies on it from a study full of dusty files, breaks through the balcony, and performs one of the most spectacular suicides in the history of film and television. In the tenth episode, Igla challenges Mate in a real straight ring, he is overpowered and armed, but he wants to prove that he is better in fist fighting as well. We’ve already seen something like this in martial arts movies, but here it’s done with style and extremely compelling. There is everything in that episode, a police helicopter is in action, while Žarko Paspa and Mate Šušnjara are fighting in a mine-laden forest.
The series is excellently directed (Goran Rukavina) and filmed (Darko Drinovac), the special effects are world-class, but what makes them stand out is the acting performances. Judita Franković found new nuances in the character of Lucija Car, she is now a mature woman and no longer an ambitious investigator who doesn't even know what she's getting into, while Dragan Despot is the dramatic backbone of the series: in the first season he seemed like a pure villain, in the second he began to show some more layered traits, while in the third he grew into a combination of a full-blooded action hero and a character actor. The enumeration of the best acting performances could take time - the interplay between Dejan Aćimović and Mladen Vulić is especially effective, as is the episode of Inga Appelt.
You don't have to like everything, for example, the character of Igla, played by the great Velibor Topic, is announced from the very beginning, you expect him to dominate in the final, and you are a bit disappointed when he is liquidated ahead of time, and replaced in the role of inevitable villain by Marinko Prga. It was possible to craft the story without flashbacks in which Lucija's late father (Darko Milas) and her partner from the first season Martin Strugar (Miodrag Krivokapić) appear, but it was probably poetic for the screenwriters, and to some extent, that connected the whole trilogy. Of course, this is not the strongest side of the series, its main trump card is the special connection between drama and action, as well as unconventional solutions, according to which "Rest in Peace" ranks among the most interesting products of European television, in a selected circle in which are Romanian "Shadows" and some of the Scandinavian and British products. That's a huge achievement and it should be constantly emphasized.