Part of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s mission is to foster greater understanding through world cinema. This year 72 Foreign Language films were submitted for Golden Globes consideration. Here is an overview of one of them.

The High Sun consists of three separate stories, which take place in the period of two decades. The storylines, in which the same actors play different roles, shed light on the bloody civil conflict, which was a result of the breakup of former Yugoslavia, and its aftermath.

The director Dalibor Matanic, who also wrote the screenplay, approaches the bloody conflict, still fresh in the minds of the people of the region, not as a war story, but as a story of love between three sets of lovers – each time it is a Croatian man and a Serbian woman.

Before the war, which started in 1991, Croats and Serbs often lived side-by-side, spoke the same language, co-existed and had inter-ethnic marriages and were engaged in sometimes forbidden love.

In the first story, set in 1991, the love relationship between two young villagers falls victim to the pre-war atmosphere of growing suspicion, confusion and fear.

The second story, set in 2001, shows how the scars of war can be still very fresh and the healing process might take longer than people might expect.

In the third story, which takes place in 2011 on the backdrop of a careless consumer society, the author gives a semi-optimistic finale to his film on the fragility of love.

Matanic himself has suggested that The High Sun celebrates selflessness and love, “the very best of human nature that is still struggling to re-emerge in our region. Because there is one thing I am sure about: at the end of the day politics and extreme nationalism never win. Love does”.

The film can also be interpreted as a warning to the peoples of the other regions of the world, which are currently drowned in the conflicts based on racial, ethnic, religious or political hatred.

Serge Rakhlin