The Forgiveness of Blood

This family drama paints an elegant portrait of a declining way of life, balancing the sadness of change with hope for progress. The first shot brings us to rural Albania, to a grand old farmhouse with a rough path running between two of its fields. A makeshift horse-drawn carriage approaches from the far end of the path, only to find the way out onto the perpendicular road is blocked by a row of stones. There is a murmur of disgust from inside the carriage, and two figures emerge; they throw the stones into the bushes, get back into their vehicle, and are on their way. Presently, a bar-room slanging match crystallises this ambiguous act of vandalism for us in a pressure chamber of ancestral resentment. The land which the path runs through used to belong to the grandfather and great-grandfather of the men who moved the stones; since then the state awarded the land to a new family, who have revoked the previous owners' tradition of allowing that path as a public thoroughfare. Tradition and family pride do not give way easily to the encroachment of state-enforced legality, and the anger soon erupts into violence. One of the men of the family who now own the land is killed by two brothers of the other, an act which sparks an old-fashioned blood feud between the families, and threatens to leave a lasting scar on the lives of the innocent younger generation.

A modern-day blood feud is an excellent way of depicting the rising gulf between generations in the onset of secular global culture. Apart from the denial of a historic right of way, which comes across as spiteful and mean-minded (though significantly it's technically legitimate), all the points of view in the disagreement are to a greater or lesser degree sympathetic. The feud is senseless, unjust, and on top of that hopelessly patriarchal; but despite this the pain of the older generation is all too recognisable. Whether the murder was self-defense or pre-meditated, it came from an understandable sense of frustration through loss, not merely of land, but of a sense of security in their way of life. However idiotic their actions they are visibly trapped by, rather than exulting in, their spurious duty. It's a credit to the script that the film's moral universe convincingly centres not on the killing but around the original land dispute, and the current inhabitants set themselves out as the aggressors, despite being the ones to suffer a murder, through showing no respect for community tradition when it comes to a statist land reallocation, yet hypocritically pursuing an archaic form of feuding far beyond what little sense of decency it might have. Alongside the newly-consolidated modernising state riding over traditional community values, the children play with mobile phones and games consoles, talk of going to university and escaping to the city. Nik (Tristan Halilaj), whose father delivers bread by horse-drawn cart, dreams of starting an internet cafe in his town. The feuding comes upon them out of nowhere, and draws them in against their will by dint of their blood. Ultimately it becomes clear that a painful break between the generations might be what is necessary, if they want to live in a world of modern-day values.

Sensibly, American writer-director Joshua Marston hasn't tried to get too involved in a cultural practice that one has to presume would be fairly alien to him. He takes an unfussy, straightforward approach, allowing the script and environment to speak for themselves and concentrating on framing the bucolic scenery and the attractively shambolic semi-rural lifestyle of the characters. As such he avoids any sense of cultural tourism, and this has a knock-on effect in the film's success in condemning a barbaric practice without looking down on the participants. He is aided immeasurably in this by his actors, who are powerful: providing naturalistic and detailed performances, and leaving the director to focus on telling the story.
Tom