Today I would like to write a bit about Serbian TV series called "Sivi dom", which means grey home, and it is very symbolic.
First things first, story is following life of young people who are serving their sentences in prison for minors. Here in Serbia, minors cannot end up in jail easy, there are only two prisons for minors in Serbia, and conditions in those prisons are much better than in those for adults.
Story is happening in 1982., and this TV series was relased during 1986.
It is called gray home because, as we all know it is between black and white, it is not good it is not bad, it is between, in the middle, it can be both, but it is nothing. Gray is absence of everything, there is no hope, no love, no faith. Nothing, just gray.
In some descriptions of this TV series you can see that they are calling this place a reform school, actually the point of it is reform, but it is not school it is jail, with much better conditions than ordinary jails, and there is a option to attend school, but it is not school.
Anuways, story is following lives of main characthers, who are totally different, only what is similar to all of them is that they are not happy and they do not know what to do they are lost, no defined goals, no principles, no hope that one day things will get better.
Every characther is very deep and you can find out a lot about their personalities even if there are only 12 episodes.
Screenwriter of this TV series, Gordan Mihic spent over a year in this prison in Krusevac to see how are those young people living, what are they doing, what do they want, how their tutors treat them...
Stories of all main characthers are based on a true stories. Maybe all the things that we can see that are happening to some of them did not happen to only one person, but they were happening to people in there, and screenwriter found out that while he was there.
One more important thing about this series is that it is very realistic, it is something what can happen to young people in jail.
I will now share with you stories of main characthers. I hope that you will be interested into it and I hope that we will talk more about this problem. Young people who are passing trouh this need to know that they are not alone, and they need to get second chance. Unfortunately they usually do not get that chance.
Now I will present you main characthers, and I will write a bit about them.
First of all I will talk a bit about Silja, he is one of main characthers, and most of the story is following his life outside of Gray Home. As the story is going we find out that Silja was one of the worst guys in there, he spent there 5 years and he is out when he is 21 years old, which means that he got in there when he was only 16 years old. That is horrible, someone who is only 16 years old should not be there. Shold not be doing things that can get him there. Anyways, we find out that he was very aggressive, that he was escaping and doing other things that are not allowed there.
At one point, when one of the worst guys killed himself with a bomb, Silja decided to change. And he changed, he gave his best. He got out, he left old friends, he found a job, appertment, he gave his best to be good.
Meanwhile, his mother has a violent husband, and Silja finds out that his girlfrend is pregnrant, but the baby is not his, she was pregnant when they met.
As time is passing he is avoind all the things that are trying to bring him back to the dark side, until his father in law and his mother, in maternity hospital are trying to stop him from being in a relationship with a woman he loves, because her baby is not his baby. There we see Silja who beat up his father in law.
And there we see that maybe he cannot come to the bright side. Maybe, he is supposed to stay on the dark side.
Next characther I will talk about is the opposite of Silja, Crni (Black). He is a young man that spend whole his life in orphanages. He is very aggressive, very rebellious, he wants to be free. He wants to take from the system and people who are parts of that system and who respect it.
He doesn't have parents, he was found in a garbage bin. Nobody wanted him, nobody loved him, and because of that he wants his revenge.He is angry, he does not have any hope, he wants to be a criminal, he wants to go to Italy.
And, we can see him escaping, and trying to make others escape with him.
He is also spending a lot of time outside of the Gray home, because he escaped, and trough the story we will find out that he escaped many times, he tried to be free many times, but what he wants more than everything is to be seen while escaping, he wants system to see that he is stronger, that he is better, smarter...
We will see him stealing money and cars, running away from the police and at the end we will see him dying in a car crash while he was running away from the police.
Spectator will be thinking when did Crni found out that he cannot escape, when did Crni realized that he is going to die, and even did he realized that he will die. Spectator will not be able to conclude what Crni really wanted.
His characther is very deep, he is a young man with no past, no future, no chance, no hope...
He could attend craft in orphanage or in Gray home, but that is not what he want. He had nothing and because of that he wanted everything, He did not want to settle down, to have a decent job and life, he wanted to be rich, free and powerful. And, we can say that he was free.
With Crni we can see a girl who is in love with him, and it seems to us that he is also in love with her, but sometimes it also seems that he is not in love, he only wants someone to support him, to stay by his side, to do what he is doing.
Anywas, we will see her deciding to stay at Gray Home, at one point she realized that if she stays in there, when she gets out she will have a future. Decent future.
Next characther I would love to talk about is Sojka. He is a young man who has rich parents, they are divorced, he is their only child, they love him the most and they would give anything to him, and it seems that it is the main problem. At some points it seems to spectators that Sojka is spoiled and that it is why he is getting into troubles, but that is not true. His main problem is his illnes. Sojka is a psychopath and a sadist. He enjoys to harasse and humilate other boys in Gray home.
As the time is passing he will findout how sad and emptu he actually is. He will realize that money, only thing that he values cannot buy everything. His main 'enemy' is tutor Beli (White) who is trying to make a good person out of him with violence.
Later, Silja will kill Beli, and even him is going to be shocked with that.
I will talk about two more characthers, two tutorst Zeka and Beli, they are opposite of each other. One of them, Zeka loves children who are in there and is trying ot help them. He thinks that love, support and understanding will make good persons out of them.
Other tutor is Beli, he is the one who thinks that they are evil and that only respond to their evil is evil.
There are much more characthers in this TV series who are giving it the depth that it has.
It is definitely worth watching and I recommenc to all of you to watch it, if you can find it.
If you are interested into this topic, when I say this topic I mean minors who are doing crimes, I can write more about it.
And, if you are interested into Serbian movies and TV series I can also write more about that.
So, please let me know if you are in the comments below.
See you soon,
xoxo
SuncicaZ
