“To try to write love is to confront the muck of language; that region of hysteria where language is both too much and too little, excessive (by the limitless expansion of the ego, by emotive submersion) and impoverished (by the codes on which love diminishes and levels it),” writes French theorist Roland Barthes in A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, the famous volume about the structure of love, its language and its discourse. Barthes points his gaze at the concept of love from the “outside,” inquisitively and analytically, but only to more fully establish the enamored subject and in the patters of his or her thoughts, behaviors and gestures discover a series of interchangeable figures directed at the loved other. A similar method is employed by the authors of several short films from our collection, which we have selected during the “month of love,” in order to try to disentangle the muck of language of love, discover how the cinematic medium writes about love, and, finally, tell an (im)possible cinematic love story of our own. 

Introduction = recognition 

Barthes finds one of the figures of the discourse of love in signs, that is, in the continuous quest for the answer to the question: “am I loved (am I loved no longer, am I still loved)?” On a lover’s face, in his or her words, actions and gestures, the enamored subject searches for the synchronized confirmation of his or her feelings, signs that indicate the reciprocity of shapes and of the intensity of emotion between the two protagonists of love. In Jasna Nanut’s Playing the Tiger, a couple at the very start of their relationship sets out on such a quest. During a limited stretch of time of one night and one morning, Boška and Tomo subtly subject each other to a series of “tests,” trying by ascertain the possibility of a future together by employing seemingly benign questions and casual remarks. As noon approaches and the film draws to a close, the answer to the above question becomes, however unspoken, perfectly clear and unequivocal. 

Communication and the (un)ambiguous power of words 

According to a frequently cited maxim for overcoming lovers’ crises, almost all hope rests on the power of conversation. In line with this belief, attaining excellent verbal communication between the partners is a necessary (pre)requisite of achieving romantic harmony. Through the power of conversation, potential problems evade misinterpretation, while the warm security of the “right” words spoken at the “right” moment, lull the lovers further into their sense of cozy security. Yet, can love be expressed without words, by means outside language? Precisely this question is at the center of the discussion that threatens Mia and Sara’s relationship in Squared, directed by Radislav Jovanov Gonzo and written by Jasna Žmak. Mia is in the habit of writing Sara love notes on pink post-its and leaving them at different places around their apartment. On the other hand, Sara would sometimes like to hear these words. 

“Words exist to be spoken, out loud,” claims Sara, while Mia responds with the following: “Our sentences have already been spoken, they have surely been someone else’s before us.” However, an act of unspoken (yet clearly stated) confirmation of Mia’s feelings will convince Sara that, in the language of love, words are just one of the ways of communicating. “Language is a skin: I rub my language against the other. It is as if I had words instead of fingers, or fingers at the tip of my words,” writes Barthes, reminding us that in the discourse of love, words and language are on par with touch and gesture. 

Continuation, end or beginning?

Love is, as Barthes writes „a story which is accomplished, in the sacred sense of the word: it is a program which must be completed.” In Sara Hribar’s From One Day to Another, the story seems locked. A young couple on the verge of divorce, for the sake of their daughter more or less successfully maintains the illusion of a happy couple. However, as they prepare their daughter’s birthday party and seemingly revert to their old roles, reconstructing (at least only at first glance) the family idyll, for a brief moment they will symbolically reread the pages of a finished love story and create the possibility of spelling out its epilogue. Or perhaps begin an entirely new story. Whatever the outcome, From One Day to Another reminds us that the structure of love stories is both linear and cyclic: as one story ends, the full stop at the end of its last sentence opens up the possibility for the beginning of a new one – with protagonists old or new.