Delo Predictions Premiere review

On Friday, October 20th, the documentary Predictions of Fire, a co-production of TV Slovenia and Kinetikon Pictures of New York, was premiered; the last shots of the 90-minute film were accompanied by the spontaneous applause of the audience. Predictions of Fire will for sure be one of the most-watched of documentaries about any Slovene art movement, not only in Slovenia but, especially, abroad. The director is Michael Benson; as a foreigner and author(ity), he is in the unenviable role of outsider on one side and documentarist and interpreter on the other. He assembles the workings of NSK and also uses them to put together a comprehensive picture of the workings of totalitarian systems in the whole of Europe. The West European and American mind will get a clear picture of the phenomenon: how is it possible, the position of Slovenia in ex-Yugoslavia? Predictions of Fire is an informative and watchable documentary about art, politics and war because it puts NSK in a historical and geographical frame, untainted by “patriotic” pathos. We’re used to such pathos; we’ve seen it in other Slovene documentaries (do you remember Bravo, the one-hour TV documentary about Laibach produced in 1993, which pretentiously polemicizes with the group while simply compiling different pre-existing documentary shots?). The reason why you watch this film to the end is not only the magic of seeing the newest image of Slovenian history through the prism of NSK, but the imaginative use of film language with intellectual charm.

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