The most impressive aspect of Biljana Tutorov and Petar Glomazić’s To Hold a Mountain is its sense of space. I wish I’d seen the film on the big screen, but even the TV image drew me in: the emptiness of Montenegro’s Sinjajevina plateau; the beauty of its grass-covered highlands, topped by rocky outcrops; and the intimate warmth of Gara’s little house on the hill, surrounded by sheep, cows, a horse, a dog, and a few cute kittens (and, according to a conversation with a passer-by, some bears and wolves as well).
The term ‘sense of space’ is regularly used when reviewing VR experiences, and it is indeed easy to imagine To Hold a Mountain being filmed in 360 degrees. How strong its sense of space is, even on a small screen (on what VR enthusiasts mockingly call ‘a flattie’), is most evident the few times there is a change of scenery. Once, beautifully, the image cuts straight from their green surroundings to the same area covered by a thick layer of snow. It’s such a dramatic change, and the image is so sublimely gorgeous, that I sat up in awe.
Another moment, we suddenly cut to Gara walking through an office, with people everywhere, cheap modern design and the cramped busy-ness of an urban locale. ‘No!’ my body – even more than my mind, because a sense of space is a physical sensation – immediately screamed. This feels wrong, she doesn’t belong here, please go home.
Which is precisely why Gara is there. The office turns out to be a TV studio and Gara is being interviewed about the Montenegrin military’s plans to use the Sinjajevina plateau – her ancestral mountain, which she unironically refers to as her “mother” – as a NATO training ground. Gara is not intimidated at all by the two uniformed army officers she is debating.
She may be living a fairly isolated life, having coffee with her neighbour, waiting for her teenage daughter Nada to return from school, but give her a megaphone or a microphone and she will orate like hellfire, straight from the heart.
The documentary isn’t about the arguments, however. There’s no real discussion of the rationale behind this shooting range, whether this location would indeed be NATO’s best option, or whether there is any truth to the military’s claim that village life would remain essentially unaffected. One can also wonder how viable this small community even is – it looks like the kind of community which might have difficulty getting young people to follow in their footsteps, continuing the hardships of traditional small-scale farming instead of moving to the city. But To Hold a Mountain isn’t about these pros and cons. It’s about how it feels to be there, to live on this ancestral mountain, to experience the beauty of the place. It’s about a sense of space.
Meanwhile, there is another story intertwined with this environmental drama. Young Nada calls Gara “mother,” but Gara was originally her aunt. Nada’s birth mother, Gara’s sister, was killed by her husband, who is close to being released from prison, greatly unnerving Gara. Thus we see women of two generations fighting a violent patriarchy: the youngest, Nada, having lost her mother to it; the other, Gara, struggling to protect her own spiritual mother – the Mountain.
There are a few scenes in which the providing of backstory through dialogue feels a bit forced; if not scripted, then at least instigated by the filmmakers – I suppose because the (quite unnecessary, I would argue) strictness of their observational stance didn’t allow them to simply insert a few questions.
Transparently, co-director Glomazić mentions in the accompanying press notes that he is co-founder of the Save Sinjajevina Civic Initiative. He himself was enraptured by the beauty of the landscape and one can hardly fault him for wanting to share that feeling. Possibly, just as the Romantic painters did, he romanticises a little – but that is how these artists get closer to the expression of the essence of a place, its true beauty, its transcendent meaning, and its partaking in the Sublime.
Serbia/France/Montenegro/Slovenia/Croatia, 2026, 105 minutes
Director Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić
Production InMaat, Megha Agrawal Sood, Shanida Scotland
Producers Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić, Quentin Laurent, Rok Biček
International sales Submarine Entertainment
Script Biljana Tutorov, Petar Glomazić
Cinematography Eva Kraljević
Editing George Cragg
Sound design Julij Zvornik, Samo Jurca
Sound Petar Glomazić, Bojan Palkuća, Biljana Tutorov
Music Draško Adzić
With Mileva ‘Gara’ Jovanović, Nada Stanišić
