Zagreb, Croatia.- A hagiographic film about the tough former leader of a small Balkan country was not going to be a global box office success. But his director, a former water polo champion turned right-wing Croatian movie darling, found a novel way to generate some buzz: he cast Kevin Spacey as the star of him.
While Hollywood has generally turned its back on Spacey due to the sexual assault allegations against him, this new film tribute to a nationalist leader, seen by some as a dangerous fan, puts the House of Cards star at the forefront and to the center.
The 90-minute film celebrates Croatia’s first president, the late Franjo Tudjman, a leader revered by his followers as a Balkan George Washington but reviled by enemies as a fanatical ethnonationalist. The film, Once Upon a Time in Croatia, will be released in Croatia in February and will be screened in other countries, including the United States.
The director, Jakov Sedlar, admitted in an interview that many people in Croatia, particularly young people, do not care much for Tudjman, a highly divisive authority figure whom historian Tony Judt described as “one of the least attractive leaders ” emerged in the early 1990s from the rubble of Yugoslavia, of which Croatia was a part.
But having Spacey play Tudjman, the director said, will “definitely help” break down a wall of what is, at best, public indifference and, at worst, ferocious hostility toward the man who led the battle for the independence of Croatia.
“Ask people if they’ve heard of Spacey or Tudjman, and of course, they’ll say Spacey,” he said. The American actor’s fame, regardless of the risk of his becoming infamy, and his undisputed acting talent, Sedlar added, “will certainly draw people to see my film about Tudjman.”
A more than controversial character
The director stated that Tudjman, who died in 1999, “was not a nationalist, but a patriot, an absolutely positive personality.” And Spacey, a two-time Oscar winner and friend of the director for more than a decade, “is the best of the best actors” and “absolutely innocent,” Sedlar said.
Both men, Sedlar opined, have been unfairly maligned: Spacey by accusers including Anthony Rapp, a fellow actor whose assault claim against the disgraced star was thrown out in October by a New York civil court, and Tudjman by national political rivals and critics. foreigners angry at their role in the blood-soaked destruction of Yugoslavia.
The film avoids any mention of crimes committed under Tudjman’s leadership, such as attacks on Bosnian civilians, the ethnic cleansing of Croatia’s once-large Serb minority, and the destruction of a 16th-century bridge in the Bosnian city of Mostar in 1993. He omits his relationship with ultra-nationalists related, during World War II, to the Ustashe, a fascist group whose brutality shocked even some German Nazis.
The director raised the necessary $425,000 from private donors. He said Spacey had accepted the role out of friendship and that he had neither asked for nor received any payment.
Critics in Croatia have divided along political lines in their reviews, though even the hostile have praised Spacey’s performance.
Whether playing Tudjman will help Spacey in his quest for rehabilitation is another question. It’s not his first role since allegations surfaced against him in 2017 – he appeared as a detective in an Italian film and as a mysterious henchman in an American thriller – but his role as Tudjman is perhaps his most risky. .
Despite his legal victory in New York, Spacey still faces serious problems in Britain, where he is expected to stand trial on sexual assault charges. He has pleaded not guilty.
