Television Review: Vlada Rus (Otpisani, S1X10, 1975)

Vlada Rus (S01E10)

Airdate: 23 February 1975

Written by: Dragan Marković & Siniša Pavić
Directed by: Aleksandar Đorđević

Running Time: 42 minutes

Otpisani has long occupied a curious space in Yugoslav television history, frequently dismissed either as escapist wartime melodrama or, in the post-Communist era, as historical fabrication devoid of authentic connection to the brutal realities of Nazi-occupied Belgrade. Such critiques, whilst not entirely baseless, fundamentally misjudge the series' original 1974/75 black-and-white incarnation. Beneath its adventure-serial veneer lay a stark, often unflinching portrayal of occupation's grim calculus—one that grew progressively bleaker as the narrative unfolded. The ninth instalment, Paja Bakšiš, had already shattered audience complacency by sacrificing its beloved titular character, but it was the tenth episode, Vlada Rus, that plunged Otpisani into its darkest territory yet. Here, the series abandoned any lingering pretence of heroic romance, exposing the resistance movement as a grinding machine that consumed its own with ruthless efficiency.

The episode functions as an immediate sequel to Paja Bakšiš, its entire emotional architecture built upon the wreckage of that preceding tragedy. Paja's self-sacrifice—allowing Prle and Tihi to escape with crucial intelligence regarding German security protocols—casts a pall over every subsequent action. The script, to its credit, refuses to let this loss dissipate into mere narrative convenience. Tihi, typically the measured strategist, simmers with barely suppressed fury, whilst Prle, whose wisecracking persona has long defined his character, transforms into something far more volatile. His outburst against superior officers Skale and Stevan crackles with genuine grief, a moment that permits Dragan Nikolić to demonstrate dramatic range far exceeding his established action-hero credentials. This psychological grounding lends weight to the central mission: a major sabotage operation against German armoured vehicles parked in the city, the very objective for which Paja surrendered his life. The imperative is clear—his death must not be rendered meaningless.

Yet the practical execution of this plan immediately reveals the resistance's threadbare resources. Prle and Tihi's inventory reveals a crippling deficit: insufficient weaponry and, more critically, a dire shortage of explosives. Engineer Babić's perilous sortie from the German base initially yields detonators and charges, but his fatal error—accidentally triggering the warehouse upon a second retrieval—epitomises the episode's emerging theme of senseless waste. Here is a technical expert, a man whose skills should guarantee meticulous precision, undone by a moment of catastrophic misjudgement. His death serves no grand purpose; it is simply the cost of operational desperation. This pattern of futility soon becomes Vlada Rus's defining characteristic.

Parallel to the sabotage plot runs Vlada Rus's increasingly dangerous liaison with Ruth Müller, daughter of Colonel Müller. Their romance—conducted through ballet visits and clandestine meetings—provides the episode's ostensible human interest, yet these sequences feel conspicuously hollow. Major Krieger's jealousy, manifested through the clandestine surveillance of his subordinate Dienst (Božidar Pavićević), introduces a subplot that ultimately leads nowhere. Colonel Müller's subsequent rebuke of Krieger for "mixing personal and official business" registers as narrative throat-clearing, a moment of bureaucratic colour that fails to develop into substantive conflict. More valuable is the intelligence Vlada gleans about Captain Bauer (Miroslav Bijelić), the Gestapo officer responsible for the armoury's security, whose weakness for female companionship—this time with a Volksdeutsche woman (Melita Bihali)—creates the operational window the resistance requires. This information, however, comes at the cost of screen time devoted to Vlada and Ruth's relationship, which never transcends perfunctory filler.

The raid itself unfolds with methodical tension. Prle, Tihi, Stevan, Sirano, and Kosinus constitute the assault team, whilst Dragana assumes lookout duties on a nearby street, explicitly instructed by Tihi to flee after issuing any warning. The capture of Bauer and his lover in flagranti provides a moment of grim satisfaction, their humiliation a small victory before the inevitable catastrophe. Prle's systematic elimination of sentries clears the path for Sirano and Kosinus to plant explosives beneath the German vehicles. For a brief moment, success appears attainable.

Fate, however, intervenes through the banal caprice of Major Krieger. Driven apparently by little more than boredom and foreknowledge of Bauer's libidinous habits, he decides upon an impromptu inspection. This arbitrary decision—neither strategically motivated nor dramatically earned—initiates the episode's catastrophic final act. Vlada Rus, learning of Krieger's movement through Gestapo headquarters, comprehends the danger and races to intercept, his lone assault on Krieger's vehicle a desperate attempt to preserve the saboteurs' escape route. The gunfire achieves its immediate purpose, alerting the guards and forcing the resistance fighters into a frantic retreat, but at devastating cost.

The ensuing chaos claims Sirano and Stevan, their deaths occurring in the confused scramble for extraction. The explosives detonate, fulfilling the mission's objective, yet the victory feels pyrrhic in the extreme. Vlada Rus manages to kill one Gestapo officer and wound Krieger, but his own survival becomes secondary when Dragana, defying Tihi's explicit orders, joins the fray with a hand grenade. Her disobedience—whilst courageously intended—proves instantly fatal; she is cut down by Dienst. Vlada's attempt to rescue her results in his own death, a final, futile gesture that underscores the episode's nihilistic turn. The resistance has succeeded tactically whilst failing catastrophically strategically, losing five operatives where previously it had lost none.

The shock of Paja's death in the preceding episode had prepared audiences for narrative boldness, but Vlada Rus escalates the body count to a degree that borders on the gratuitous. Engineer Milić's accidental demise, Vlada Rus's quixotic last stand, and Dragana's pointless sacrifice collectively suggest a script more interested in punishing its characters than illuminating their struggle. The deaths feel particularly egregious because they are so often stupid and needless—Milić's expertise should have prevented his error; Vlada's supposedly James Bond-esque skills as a double agent are squandered in a one-man assault against numerically superior forces; Dragana's fate violates both tactical sense and character logic. The latter creates an additional continuity problem, as actress Zlata Numanagić would later appear in the 1976 sequel Povratak otpisanih in a different role, a casting decision that inadvertently trivialises her character's sacrifice here.

Compounding these narrative missteps are the poorly directed romantic interludes between Ruth and Vlada, which play like contractual obligations rather than integral story elements. Their scenes extend the running time without deepening character or advancing plot, and with Vlada's demise, the entire subplot becomes retrospectively redundant. One might argue it was always thus. Technically, the episode further stumbles with its reliance on obviously recycled explosion footage from the earlier episode Garaža, a budgetary constraint that shatters immersion at the very moment of climax.

Vlada Rus is as a solidly acted but fundamentally flawed instalment of Otpisani. The performances—particularly Nikolić's dramatic turn and the supporting cast's committed work—cannot compensate for a script that mistakes bleakness for profundity and body count for dramatic weight. The episode's grim fidelity to the realities of occupied Belgrade, whilst admirable in intent, manifests as a series of increasingly arbitrary deaths that ultimately undermine the resistance's credibility. It is unlikely to rank among the series' most popular or memorable moments, remembered instead as the point where Otpisani's darkness tipped from atmospheric into oppressive, sacrificing character and sense for the sake of unrelenting fatalism.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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