Oroslan (2019) - full transcript

Oroslan?

Hi.

Hi.

- Hi.
- Hi.

I don't know,
I also don't feel well.

What’s up? You all right?

Fine, it's just a bit cold.

Don’t whine about the cold.
Your bones are still young.

Shall we?

I played football at Fazanerija
in Murska Sobota and...

- In Lendava. What’s
the stadium called? - Nafta.



- The stadium is called FC Nafta?
- Yeah.

So there. Then I played in Veržej,
Beltinci and Turnišče.

And I finished
my football career in Turnišče.

- What happened?
- Huh?

Just like that?

At the time, I mean...

I played for Domžale
for the last six months,

and for Olimpija's junior team
before that,

and then for a year in Medvode…

So for the last six months
I played in Domžale.

And I remember saying to myself:

"Fuck it, I either do something now
or that's it."

And I trained hard
all summer long.

And I felt things were going well.



I thought the coach liked me
and I was going to play.

The first match of the season
was in Turnišče. We drove there.

We drove for two hours... How long
is it from Domžale to Turnišče?

- Yeah, two hours. For sure.
- Two hours. It was boiling hot.

So we get there
and two hours before the match

the coach calls us to the locker room
to tell us the starting line-up.

And he goes:
one, two, three, four...

Up to eleven,

then twelve, reserve goalkeeper,
thirteen, fourteen,

fifteen, sixteen.

I wasn’t among them,
not even a reserve player.

I mean… I wasn’t even allowed
to put on the team jersey.

I had to watch the match
in my own clothes, like everyone else.

- I was really pissed off.
- I'd have turned around and gone home.

Well, I bought some fags

and stood behind that wire fence
behind the goal.

It was hot as hell.

I lit a fag and thought to myself:

"That’s it, goodbye."

Did you have big aspirations
or goals in football?

You know how it is.
When you’re a kid...

When you’re a kid watching TV,
imagining that you’ll…

That you’ll play in front of 50,000 people
at Marakana, Poljud, Maksimir...

But in the end you play
in Šmartno ob Paki,

Zagorje, Velenje.

- Turnišče.
- Turnišče, Veržej...

No, but…
I mean it doesn't matter.

There can be 30 thousand or 300
people, you still want to do it.

- Yeah.
- You still want to do it.

So I was standing
behind that fence,

looking at the lovely grass
you have in Prekmurje,

and I didn’t even wish we'd lose.

Usually, if you were a reserve,
you wished your team would lose,

so the coach would
call you in for the next match…

At that moment, I didn’t even wish
we'd lose. I didn’t care.

Not at all.

But you still had to go
back home with the team.

I don’t remember. I remember
partying for the next three years.

There, in that pub,

every day,
a craftsman sat in the same spot.

A blacksmith, who was a master
of his craft and a master of life.

And so we were chatting
and I asked him:

"Hi there, what's up?
Have you come for a spritzer?"

And he says: "Yeah. Every day,
my wife lets me go for a spritzer."

At the end of the long bar, there was
this rather small man, who said:

"Are you saying that you ask
your wife if you can go for a spritzer?

What kind of man are you?"

The blacksmith looks at him,
like this.

We all knew
something wasn’t right.

Then he got up.

He wasn’t fat.
He was thin as paper.

But so broad-chested that when he
got up, a shadow fell on the pub.

And he walked slowly towards him

and slowly grabbed him
by the ear, like this.

And then he squeezed his ear
so that the guy just went down.

And then: "Ow-ow-ow."

He turned him around
and went towards the door with him.

After every few steps,
he squeezed his ear

and the guy went: "Ow-ow-ow."

Then out they went.

We wondered: What now?
Is he going to kill him?

We followed him outside

and saw him go up the road.

And we went after him.
He kept squeezing the guy's ear

and the guy was going:
"Ow-ow-ow."

We walked past the cemetery...

Will he throw him in a hole? No.

We kept going
and got to his smithy.

Is he going to hammer him?
And the guy went: "Ow-ow-ow."

A bit further up was his house.

We came up
and he squeezed his ear.

He said: "Vera! Veronika!"
That’s his wife.

"Vera!" She came down the hill
with a basket full of autumn mushrooms

and said:
"What do you want, old man?"

"Do I ask you every day
if I can go for a spritzer?"

"Yes, you ask me every day.
Why are you asking me this?"

So he squeezed a bit more
and the guy went: "Ow!"

He let go of his ear

and said: "You see,
blacksmith Jože doesn’t lie."

And we went back to the pub.

I buried Ilonka
together with my brother.

Twenty years ago.

She told her family
she was going to the cinema

and never came back.

The next day, they found
her bicycle behind the pub.

They said she either went
across the border or into the water.

Women used to prefer the water.

Today,
they prefer to hang themselves.

And then…

I don’t know, after a month
or two she was found...

In the river near the power plant,
she got stuck at the dam.

And so we knew
she didn’t go across the border.

She didn’t go across the border,
but into the water.

She had to be brought
back home from the morgue.

Her father Feri asked
who'd go and get her.

And my brother said:
"I'll go. Just give me a van."

Because he hadn’t
been behind the wheel in a while.

Feri arranged a van and I happened
to be home for the holidays.

And he said: "Somebody has to go
with me. I can’t do it by myself."

And so I went with him.

We drove to town to get her.

Then my brother suddenly hits
the brakes, saying: "Wait a minute!"

He ran into the butcher's, where he
used to work, but not as a butcher.

He just worked there.
We used to do the slaughtering

in the hills around there.

He was used to this.
So he ran into the butcher’s

and brought out a sack,

a plastic sack
that they use for meat.

He tied it on one side,

we went to the morgue

and we put Ilonka in it.

She was a tiny girl,
eighteen years old.

We put her in and tied the sack
to prevent the stink.

And then we put her
into the coffin.

All that was left in the morgue

was her clothes.
You know, they,

they took her clothes off
like she was an ear of corn.

You know
when you open it up like this.

And there, in her panties,

there were
two or three little poops.

That’s all that was left of her.

What about your brother?

Eva was the last to see him.
She visited him the day before.

She went round to clean a bit,
bring him food.

She said he was poorly.

But he was always like that,
drinking seven days straight.

He'd say he was better.

Always the same story.

Eva walked past our house
the next day

and she saw he hadn't taken
the food he had delivered daily.

She went to the pub
and asked if they'd seen him.

They said they hadn't.

Then the pub owner Zavec sent
Richy and Tommy to check on him.

They returned and said
he was lying on the floor.

"And?" he asked.

"Go back and check.

Maybe it's not alcohol,
but something else."

When they came rushing back,
they said he was stiff.

Then the police,
the doctor...

He'd died.

Then Eva brought the keys.
She locked up the house.

She brought the keys and...

Yeah, that's that.

I got back from fieldwork,
like now,

dropped off the gear
and went down our long corridor,

and, at some point,
my phone rang in my pocket.

I don’t know,
but somehow I just knew it.

The voice on the phone said:

"Hello, sir, I’m calling
from the Monošter police station."

I knew he'd died,

that he was gone.

But, you know,
there was something egoistic in me,

I could've, I don’t know,

I could've thought
that he had hit his head,

or broken his arm or leg,
or something like that.

But that didn’t enter my mind.

I knew he'd died.
And they told me:

"Epilepsy: we found him
dead in the kitchen."

And the first thing I thought was
that he hadn't hanged himself.

They said: "Yes, he was lying
in the kitchen. He suffocated."

And again.
He didn’t hang himself. Thank God.

Nothing.

I called his neighbour,
Zavec the pub owner, who said:

"Look, that’s how it is.

You can't do anything now.
That’s how it is."

And I could just see them
there, in the pub.

Zavec behind the bar,

and then Feri, Jančko, Atilla.

They're sort of at a loss
because they don’t know what to do.

A moment before,

they'd watched how they put him
in a van in a transport coffin

and drove him down the hill.

The van stopped
when it got to the main road,

as if the deceased wanted
to turn to the pub,

where he'd been every day,
and take his last farewell.

But that’s not why it stopped.
It stopped only

to look left and right before turning
onto the main road to Monošter.

So then...

I got there the next day

and everything was
the same as before.

Zavec poured me
a palinka or two, which I drank.

I didn’t even go up
to see how it was there.

What could I see there?
There's nothing to see.

So nothing. We drank,

talked.

And yeah...

That sort of thing.

But, you know, you have to

tell people…

That a man has died. So my best friend
Klenc and I got in a car

and went to Monošter and other villages
to tell people he'd died.

We told Kruc,
who's a strange man,

a real oddball.

And Irinka, we went to see Irena.

I had to see her because Irena was,
how can I put this,

a woman who reminded me

of my family,
which was gone. She was

a candidate to be my stepmother.

She lived with my father
for a while and...

They might've married
if I hadn't caused a scandal.

I fucked it up, completely.

When my father said he wanted
to marry her, I lost it completely.

But okay.

They didn’t get married.
My father never forgave me.

Irena, on the other hand,
kept jumping off the roof,

trying to commit suicide.

Her head buzzed,
and she was in a retirement home

and the psychiatric hospital,
sort of going back and forth.

Well, I couldn’t find Irinka.
She wasn’t home.

So we went back home.

Zavec asked me: "Are you
going to keep him in the morgue

or in a room at home?"

And I said: "At home.
We’ll have him on a bier."

And then we pulled out
a long table,

a village table,
which can be used for anything.

We play cards, slaughter pigs,

have stag and hen nights, weddings,
everything. And it's also for corpses.

A neighbour came and put
some cloths on it, and candlesticks,

while I went
to write the funeral speech.

I wondered what to write.

What?

I could've come to his house
from the fucking town and helped him.

I could've given him
200 or 500 euros to fix the roof

so it wouldn't leak, and to buy
firewood and keep warm,

I could’ve helped him.

But I didn't, you know, I didn't.

- Unnerstau.
- Under...

- Unnerstau.
- Understand.

No, without the 'd'.

- Unnerstau.
- Unnerstau.

Thenk ye uncoly means...
Uncoly means very much.

- Unholy?
- Or a lot. Uncoly.

Shall we go?

I'll follow you in a minute.

Okay.

Are you done for the day?

Yeah.

And you?

Shall we?

- See you.
- Bye.

Take the next right.

There.

Now go to the end.

Keep going straight.

And then left.

All right...

Now you can stop.

- Or not. Let's go for a shot.
- I’d rather not.

Come on, you’ll see the waitress.

No offence, but I’d rather not.

- Really.
- All right.

- Take care, bye.
- Take care, bye.

I remember him as one of the best
slaughterers in the village.

He went to lots of places.
To old people. And young people.

He helped everyone. Whoever
asked him to slaughter a pig,

he'd do it.
And he always did it well.

He made blood and meat sausages,
both really well. And he worked fast.

He helped his friends for free
and others for a piece of meat,

but never for money,
only for meat.

Whatever they gave him.

He'd always say: "It’s better
to go to the pub than to church."

In church, only the priest drinks,
but here we all drink.

I can’t say a bad word about him.

He was really okay.

It's a shame that he died.

He was a good man.

I liked him, and he was glad
to have somebody visit him.

I often asked him if he needed
anything from town.

So, some years ago,

I came to his house
to ask him if he needed anything.

I opened every door,
but he wasn't there.

I went behind the house,

and there he was, lying
under an apple tree, sleeping.

I tried to wake him up,
but I couldn’t.

I couldn’t tell whether he was sick,
or drunk, or just sleeping.

After a few minutes he opened his eyes,
looked at me for quite a while

and then asked:
"Am I in heaven?

Is this an angel in a white robe?"

"Why, no, you're on earth
and I'm your neighbour," I said.

"I came to ask
if you needed anything from town.

I'm wearing white
because it’s so hot."

After that,
he'd often say to me:

"You're an angel that God sends
to me when I'm in danger."

We drove
a load of spruce trees to Budapest.

It was a week's work,

and I must say
it was quite hard work

until we sold them all.

He was a good man
and hard-working, I must say.

In addition, he....

Well, it wasn't just him,
many people liked to have a drink.

If we work, we have to drink.
He was like that, he liked to drink.

The problem was
that when we were there together

and I most needed his help,

he'd often disappear.

He knew
that there was a pub nearby,

he was thirsty.

I had stuff to drink there,
but he wasn’t so keen on tea.

He preferred stronger stuff.

All in all, it was cold,

and you have to drink something
to warm yourself up a bit.

He certainly stuck to that.

He'd disappear for a bit
every day.

Not a big deal really,
but that’s how it was.

I met him at The Cipher.

He had epilepsy,
bear in mind.

He'd drink a decilitre of red wine,
a decilitre of white wine

and a decilitre of soda
with a shot of vodka.

I didn’t know he had epilepsy.

And then once he had a fit.
He fell on the floor, shaking.

Some older people went over
to him and pulled his tongue out.

I didn't know.
I watched and froze.

I watched in amazement.

Two minutes later, he gets up,

walks over to the bar
and just continues.

I ask him: "What's this?
Do you remember anything?"

"Something happened!"
He says: "Nothing."

Okay then.

In the morning,
when we took the bus to work,

the bus was full.

When we got on,
it was already completely full.

We were all tired and half asleep,

but by the time we arrived
in Monošter, we were all awake

because he'd say crazy stuff
and we'd all laugh.

Often, we couldn’t hear him,

but because everyone laughed,
we also laughed.

When we got to Monošter,
we were all awake

and went to work in such good spirits,
as if we weren't going to work at all.

Because he talked and mumbled
such crazy stuff.

Sometimes, we didn’t even know
what he wanted to say.

When we met him and talked,

he'd always look at our palms.
Because he'd read our future.

He'd say: "You'll have this,
you'll have that..."

"You’ll meet with a misfortune…"

Where he got
or didn’t get those ideas…

In the end, it always came true.

And then you thought:
"His words actually came true.

How did he know that?"

He was a good man,
he did crazy stuff,

whether he told the truth or not
doesn't matter.

He was a very brave man
and he made us laugh.

Yes, well, that’s how it was.
And then winter came.

Boys would wander around at night,
doing all sorts of stuff.

He had friends,
and they took a cart apart

and put it together again
on the roof.

We all just laughed

at how a cart
could get on the roof.

We met when we were young
and got together.

I played accordion,
he played guitar.

So we played together.

After that, what happened was
that he had a beautiful girlfriend.

He was in love and all that.

I also had a few myself.
But I had a different type.

We went to Budapest,

where he met another girl,

who then came over here,

and the two of them met
and a fight broke out.

That was a pain,
because we had to keep them apart

to prevent
something bad from happening.

All this was going on

and we suffered a lot
because we were still young.

I’m older now,
and there are no such problems.

It’s May now
and everything's all right.

Yes, you know, she got married
to another man.

He was crazy not to have wed her,
she would've made a good wife.

His mother was still alive then

and would've taught her
what she didn't know.

And he'd have someone
in his old age.

It wasn't like they imagined.

God knows what her name was.

What was her name?

She was a hardworking girl.

He was a fine man.

Based on Zdravko Duša’s short story
"And That’s Exactly How It Was”.