Return to the Shadows
Travis Wilkerson
MOVIE REVIEW
Through the Graves the Wind Is Blowing (2024)
It’s time to become acquainted with the filmography of Travis Wilkerson. In “Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing,” his 10th film, he manages to combine a personal experience of life under fascism, a history of the fight against fascism in Croatia, the complicated history of its city Split as expressed by its soccer team and the life story and recent career history of a local policeman named Ivan Perić. Originally he planned to make a movie about the disintegration of Yugoslavia, but as he says in his introduction, “How in the world can you do a thing like that.” The answer is, like this. And the cherry on top is it’s very, very good.
Mr. Wilkerson made the movie largely himself, with his wife, Erin, also doing some of the cinematography, and Mr. Perić credited as coscreenwriter because a large part of the film is them talking. Mr. Perić became a policeman so as not to work in the tourism industry – the calm anger with which he repeatedly states “Everyone hates the tourists,” should give you pause about traveling to Croatia anytime soon – but this means that instead he spends his time attempting to investigate the murders of tourists, including one who was stabbed to death with a replica “Game of Thrones” spear. But the spear is lost in transit to a forensics lab, tourist sites refuse to close for even the most cursory examination, no one present when someone died horribly and publicly saw anything, and Mr. Perić’s boss repeatedly and personally insults him in the press for his inability to solve any of these crimes. Mr. Wilkerson films their conversations in gorgeous black-and-white under graffitied walls of the city, but also intersperses his narration of the history of the local soccer team (and its dangerous fan armies) through shots of the stadium.
In the most disturbing sequence, Mr. Wilkerson challenges himself to see how many fascist symbols he can find in his neighborhood in a single hour, but after discovering over 200 – all of which are shown – is 26 minutes, gives up in despair to take his children to the playground. There’s a swastika on the merry-go-round too; and this anti-fascist fury is clearly what drew the Berlinale to the movie (even despite everything this year). Speaking of antifascists, we also learn the life story of Rade Končar, an antifascist war hero executed by the ultranationalists in 1942, and whose statue in Split was attacked by a fascist in 2018, which fell over on top of him and broke his leg. The only time Mr. Wilkerson uses an obscenity in his narration is to describe his glee about that broken leg.
The influence of “Wisconsin Death Trip” is very strong, in that “Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing” also combines seemingly unfilmable black-and-white stories about the past into something modern and deeply affecting. You can take your children on a day trip to the local concentration camp, only to realize that a large portion of your fellow visitors are there to celebrate the murders instead of honor the dead. You can make friends with a decent, kind policeman who wants to do the right thing but is hamstrung every step of the way. Life is cruel and upsetting, but you can simply refuse to give into despair and instead make excellent art about it (and also get your kids a puppy). And it all builds to a story from Mr. Perić’s childhood involving the football team, ethnic violence and a world on the cusp of permanent change to make it brutally clear how interconnected everything is. It all ties together in a way which means Mr. Wilkerson achieved his impossible goal after all. There’s no way in the world “Through the Graves the Wind is Blowing” should have worked, but it’s a triumph. And that’s without mentioning the breakdancing.
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