Belgrado

Belgrado, a film which depicts the final hours of jazz singer Jade Winhouse (Ivonne Carolina Glz) is Mexican director Anthoni A. Contreras’ shot at telling their own tale about a life cut down in its prime, a clear reflection on the sad and tragic story of Amy Winehouse and others like her who shone tremendously brightly but for too short a time. However, despite its best efforts, inspirations and intentions, Belgrado will likely leave you feeling more saddened by how much more it might have been.

With Belgrado, Contreras clearly wants to get his tribute to those like Winehouse and Marilyn Monroe across but is equally determined to do it in their own unique way, which to his credit he does, it’s just a shame that it doesn’t quite come together in the end. From the start, Contreras encourages audiences to think for themselves with the film’s opening message; “The following short film is made in a surreal way so that partially or totally, ...the viewer...will have to interpret the situations that take place during the film”. Which in itself is fine, leaving audiences to take a leap of faith and inevitably suss out the deeper meanings of any art themselves is not unheard of or indeed unwelcome. But for this strategy to work, one must give the audiences firstly, something to work out, and secondly, a reason to want to.

Unfortunately, Belgrado does neither. The pulpy, dreamlike aesthetic is a promising eye-catcher as the films opens, and for the most part Contreras’ film offers something visually striking and different. But from there it becomes a bit of a meandering narrative muddle that audiences have very little to sink their teeth into or be interested in, and what’s left is never really open to that much interpretation in the end.

Where the real interest is and what should have been focused on a thousand times more, is Jade. Jade, a young woman hours from what will ultimately be her last ever performance and indeed last hours altogether, clearly has a path of significant life events that have led her to this final point and it's that story that is dying to be told and turned over again and again. Instead, the film to opts for having Carolina Glz (whose limited performance is more a reflection on being given nothing of any stand-out purpose to do as opposed to their acting ability) stomp around the set looking for her score, before finally settling down with it and heading into oblivion. From there, where one supposes the interpretations should begin, is where the film really could have opened up its character deep-dive to give the story what it really needed, who Jade is, how she got here and why is this her final stand? But like Jade’s life, it's all burns out far too soon.

With Belgrado, the intended idea is clear to see, as is the passion that wanted to turn this into a great story and a fitting tribute to those it clearly thinks of. However there are simply too many missteps along the way to make this film work.