Zagreb
July 3, 1999
Rob's
Journal
After a very productive, but emotionally draining week, Rob and Leon head to Leon's hometown, Zagreb.
We are resting in Zagreb now, It has been a long couple of weeks and I haven’t been able to sit down to write in a number of days. I knew we would hit a wall sooner or later and I guess later is now. The car that we rented in Budapest was supposed to be returned today, but it looks like we’ll be returning it. The money to continue traveling is also running out. Leon is across the room talking on the phone to his fiancée, Goga in the States and I don’t need to guess that some of what they’re talking about is their impending financial difficulties.
We still want to go to Macedonia and I can only pray we have enough money to make it there. Everything is going to work out, I know, but this will be very difficult...especially for Leon and Goga. Our fate has always been in God’s hand and this has been the best way to do this documentary, and that’s why I think our shooting schedule is not over and that we will go to Macedonia.
In the meantime, I had this really strange dream last night:
There in a wide opening shot is a grand hotel lobby of polished white marble. The ceiling is endless and the room is cavernous. There, in the middle of the lobby, a group of well-dressed friends of mine are gather in an alcove one step above the lobby.
Everyone is laughing and enjoying themselves as if we are having some kind of reunion. The faces seem familiar and I recognize them as old friends I haven’t seen in a long time, but there is no one there that I know for sure.
Then they go to another part of the hotel leaving me and a woman behind that I know as an old friend, but again the face doesn’t seem quite right. She is lounging in a chair that is white, and I believe she is also wearing a white dress, but her hair is dark and her looks are Mediterranean, like The Madonna. I am attracted to her and probably made some remarks to the point, but I also know we are just friends. I kneel beside her and lay my head in her lap and she caresses my head.
Then the scene changes totally and I am just watching now, somewhere on a high but very small terrace where the landscape below looks like an old town ravaged by war. Some mice are gathered there trying to build cabins from toothpicks. They seem unable to do it and there is much confusion between them.
There are also some men there but I do not know them at all. They seem to be trying to tell the mice what to do but they seem to only add to the confusion and they want to leave. Then a large black crow flies by and lands on the side of the terrace, and the men all say the crow is a very smart bird and can teach the mice how to build the cabin.
The big black bird also says that he is quite able of teaching the mice and then the men leave in a hurry. The crow does teach them to build the cabin, and then flies above them, but the mice do a hasty job and their toothpick cabins are not very stable, but they don’t want to work anymore and they rejoice in their accomplishment.
They are so happy that they make up a song about how the great black crow came from the sky to teach them how to build their rickety homes. I think to myself that the song is quite good as a story and I say to myself how I would like to use this song in the documentary.
Then I woke up.
Rob's allegorical dream hasn't prepared him for the coming nightmare, as the team starts to run out of funds and the stress of guerrilla production takes its toll on Leon's health and Rob's patience.
