Review of The Load

I have an idea what director Ognjen Glavonic was trying to convey with this movie, but because of it's often unfocused and meandering nature, I think the average viewer will find it boring and pointless. The main character is a burly and thuggish looking truck driver named Vlada Stefanovic (Leon Lucev), making a delivery through a war torn country on the way to Belgrade. Set during the late Nineties conflict between Serbian state forces with Kosovo Albanian separatists, the milieu will be unfamiliar to the average viewer, and the story line doesn't add anything by way of explanation to help one understand. On his journey, interrupted by roadblocks along the way, Vlada picks up a hitchhiker, and their interaction reveals that the older man isn't really a bad guy per se, he's just trying to make ends meet with whatever job he could find to support his family. Though we never know what the truck's cargo contains, a significant hint is offered at the final destination when Vlada is ordered to clean out his truck. The realization that he may have been trafficking fellow citizens to safety causes him to revisit the strained relationship he has with his own son. Mind you, this is just conjecture on my part, because that idea is never really made clear. The film ends rather abruptly, and for anyone disengaged to begin with, a huge question mark will loom as to the relevance of the story to anything at all. It's not something I would recommend, even for it's noteworthy number of wins at international film festivals.