“Daring and unorthodox, the film is a beautifully captivating humanistic odyssey that plays to several senses and creates something singularly unique.”

There are two truths that can be considered somewhat universal when it comes to human nature: we all have different interpretations of what paradise is, and we’re collectively engaged in the constant pursuit of whatever it represents to us. For some, it’s a place defined by tranquility and luxury, whereas for others it is something far less tangible but still incredibly alluring. Mladen Kovacevic is actively interested in exploring the concept and how it takes on different meanings for a variety of people, which he crafts into Possibility of Paradise, an experimental documentary that follows the lives of a few residents of a seemingly remote island – some are natives to the region, others are foreigners who are either visiting or planning to make this their home. Wildly divergent in background and demographic, but united under a shared desire to achieve what they consider to be the closest version of paradise that they are bound to encounter, each of these individuals undergoes their own existential journey as they quietly move towards what they hope will be the realization of an idealistic future. Crafted with a sense of both curiosity and incredulity towards the world and its variety of inhabitants, Possibility of Paradise is a unique piece of documentary filmmaking that offers valuable insights into a subject that has been consistently overlooked, with the director carefully piecing together a rich, evocative series of moments in the lives of ordinary people living in obscurity (some by choice, others by fate) who become the foundation for this labyrinthine examination of humanity and its innermost desires.

A cursory glance at the work Kovacevic has done over the years makes it clear that he is not someone who has any reverence for conventional structure, and even when setting out to make a documentary that covers as seemingly simple a premise as this one, he cobbles together quite an unorthodox bundle of ideas, which adds layers to an already intricately woven concept. The most appropriate way to view Possibility of Paradise is as a visual essay, a long-form snapshot into the daily routine of people who would be otherwise unknown had the director not captured their lives on camera. We are given scant information about who these people are or where they come from – the boundary between the native inhabitants of this island and those who come from abroad is made very clear (and serves as the source of a slight dramatic tension we encounter throughout the film), but other than very obvious differences shown at the outset, the barriers grow more ambiguous as the film progresses and we see the passage of time. Kovacevic is dedicated to the images more than he is to the themes that accompany them, with the cinematography being prioritized as the main method of storytelling. Conversations between people are mostly trivial in comparison to the striking manner in which he captures these locations, which oscillate between grandiose landscapes and intimate, unconventional images that aim to paint a more authentic picture of the lives of these people. The absence of a de facto protagonist (or at least a character whose perspective is central to the narrative) makes this use of the visual component all the more intriguing, since this is the connective tissue that binds these different vignettes together, giving the film shape and something of a structure.

Coherency does not necessarily equate to a pre-defined structure, which is the thesis statement for many experimental filmmakers, and with which Kovacevic seems to be mostly aligned. This is made evident by how he crafts Possibility of Paradise, elevating it from a relatively conventional documentary about cultural differences and instead pursuing something far more abstract but not any less compelling. There are certainly aspects that could have lent themselves to intense discourse – the idea of contemporary imperialism in particular looms heavily over the film – but he allows these ideas to fester in the mind of the viewer, rather than centering the entire film around them, which makes it a much more complex work. The film is presented as a series of brief moments, leaping between perspectives and offering fascinating glimpses into the ordinary day-to-day events experienced by these people, which are rendered incredibly beautiful by how the director views them over the course of the film. It can be aligned with the concept of stream-of-consciousness storytelling, where the flow of the ideas is far more important than the nature of the content, which is nonetheless fascinating but secondary to the sensory experience that this film eventually becomes. It is undeniably more of a visual piece than it is a discursive one, with the conversations at the heart of these scenes being left for the viewer’s personal interpretation, and where Kovacevic is more focused on the experience than the underlying discourse.

Unconventional but incredibly beautiful in terms of both form and content, Possibility of Paradise is a difficult film to comprehend at first, and may even be seen as somewhat impenetrable at the outset. Yet, the more we allow ourselves to simply surrender to the hypnotic images and sounds that populate this film, the closer we come to unearthing the secrets lingering beneath the surface. Kovacevic is not interested in following familiar formats of documentary filmmaking (which we can easily see from his previous work, none of which seems to be forged in the image of conventional styles of the genre), and even as an observational or ethnographic piece, the film feels unique in execution. However, its bespoke approach is not merely an opportunity for the director to proclaim his refusal to follow traditions, but rather a chance to reinvent the structure of the documentary in a small but substantial way – we don’t follow a singular perspective, but rather encounter a rich, complex tapestry of lives, each one fascinating and striking. We spend a few moments with them before moving on to the next one, which creates a stream of captivating, compassionate insights into modern life. Daring and unorthodox, the film is a beautifully captivating humanistic odyssey that plays to several senses and creates something singularly unique, and where the process of unravelling its mysteries becomes an actively engaging part of this poetic, inimitable experience.