Somebody shot at me! That’s the premise for Slovenian film director Darko Sinko’s feature film debut ‘Inventory’, with a world premiere at the 2021 San Sebatian Film Festival in the New Directors category.
‘Inventory’ is about a middle-aged man named Boris Robič (Radoš Bolčina), who is just an average person coming home from a hard day’s work and sitting by his desk reading his book only finding himself nearly shot by someone through the window of his house. Boris has no idea who shot at him as he does not have any enemies he could think of, leading to an investigation by the police at their house to find out who was behind the target of Boris.
It’s a simple plot device, combined with an ordinary man and some dry humour in the dialogue as they interact with the police investigation. Boris does not appear to be traumatized by the incident, but rather confused about why anyone would shoot at an uninteresting man who has no real conflicts with anyone, except with minor conflicts with his wife. It’s dialogues like this brings a bit of a chuckle from Boris’ personality on a serious situation.
Boris considers himself to be a likable individual, which really shows out of Radoš calm and quirky performance. He seems like a personable guy who does not want to cause any trouble with anyone. There’s a funny scene where Boris and his family go through a list of people he interacted with, whether it was a close friend to simply a janitor that could be a suspect. Boris and his family make a list of people that they think would be crazy enough to shoot at Boris. The list itself looks like a workflow chart coming out of a university assignment tracing out how deep the connections Boris had with him added a nice touch to the dry and absurd humor of their discussions on potential suspects.
When the police interviewed Boris, they ask very specific questions and Boris would answer out of confusion, giving them sometimes vague and simple answers, which leads to more questions in his mind. It’s often acknowledged throughout the movie that Boris is really a likeable guy. But for some reason, when he meets with his friends and coworkers, they are all curious as to why Boris was shot at, creating their own theories concerning over his well-being and over theirs due to their association with him.
There are metaphoric references to the initial incident being shot by the window, such as the spilling of red wine on Boris and the broken shards of the wine glass when he dropped it. The scene depicted a sign of reminder to Boris about said incident. Even with the challenges of the police investigation not finding the answers or motives of who and why someone shot through Boris’ window, the triggered memory of the shooting put Boris in an obsessive state of finding out the reason behind it.
What makes ‘Inventory’ interesting is how Boris was initially just going about his life without much purpose other than to do the ordinary routines of his day. When the shooting happened, Boris’ own perception of himself and the world completely changed, feeling the need to connect with anyone that he encountered his life that might be motivated to shoot him. Whenever a name is dropped, Boris immediately pursues looking for that person to investigate on his own, only to show the paranoia state of mind that clouded Boris’ judgment when meeting people. Those that are close around him were having trouble understanding what Boris’ intentions were.
From a viewer’s perspective, following the path Boris was taking shows that he really was traumatized after all, even though mentioned earlier in this review that he was not. But the behaviors show Boris’ mind was clouded with rumination of the answers he could not get out of his head relating to the shooting. Boris felt responsible that he hurt someone so bad that someone wanted to hurt him in return. Going back to the idea that Boris considers himself to be a likeable guy, he felt the need to make sure that everyone he knew had no real animosity to him.
‘Inventory’ is an intricate film focusing on the one individual whose life was rocked by a life-altering traumatic experience who is having trouble moving on from it, whereas those around him think it is not a big deal. One where people hear the story, but lacks the emotional support Boris really needed to move on from his unanswered questions in his mind. It’s a great piece of work that involves the theme of mental health, and how Boris was coping with his trauma, even if it does not make sense to others around him. At the end of the day, sometimes the questions may never be answered and people like Boris has to learn to live on with his life.