Films: Buick Riviera

Buick Riviera

Croatia, 2009, 86 Minute Running Time
Genre/Subjects: Drama, Foreign, Political, Social Issues
Program: Contemporary World Cinema
Language: English/Bosnian English Subtitles

DIRECTOR: Goran Rusinovic
Producer: Boris T. Matic, Kate Barry
Editor: Vlado Gojun, Miran Miosic
Screenwriter: Goran Rusinovic, Miljenko Jergovic
Cinematographer: Igor Martinovic
Principal Cast: Slavko Stimac, Leon Lucev, Aimee Klein

In Buick Riviera, based on a novel by Miljenko Jergovic, Croatian director Goran Rusinovic paints a bleak picture of life as experienced by his hopeless protagonist, Hasan, who is freeze-framed by frigid days and nights. Seventeen years ago, Hasan left civil war–torn Bosnia for the States. Now unemployed and alienated, he lives with his wife Angela in Fargo, North Dakota, taking refuge only in his beat-up Buick Riviera. When Angela, a local policewoman, insists he get rid of the clunker, he responds, “That Buick is my America. I always felt at home in it.” Tortured by memories of his homeland, Hasan ignores her plea to just be part of a “normal couple” and spends his days driving aimlessly down desolate highways.



One icy night, Hasan’s car skids off the road. Stranded, he waits. By chance (or not), Vuko, a fellow exile, stops his car to rescue him. The two share a common language and a grim past – which found them on opposite sides of the war. At first, Vuko, who has just left his rich American wife, confides his personal tale of woe. When he begins to drop ethnic slurs into the conversation, though, Hasan refuses to engage further. Vuko accuses Hasan of being a Muslim, a charge he denies. And so begins a deeply brooding psychological game of wits – with destructive consequences. 

Meanwhile, Buick Riviera’s surreal landscapes, often viewed through the car windshield, haunt the viewer long after the final scene – offering a beguiling sense of freedom just beyond the trap.

Official Film Website

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