Television Review: Pečurke (Otpisani, S1X05, 1975)

Pečurke (S01E05)

Airdate: 19 January 1975

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

Running Time: 48 minutes

Even within a relatively short and thematically consistent television series like Otpisani, which maintains a tightly focused narrative on the Yugoslav Partisan resistance in occupied Belgrade, it is inevitable that certain episodes will prove more controversial than others. Such is the case with Pečurke (‘Mushrooms’), the series’ fifth instalment. Its contentious nature, however, stems not from any deficiency in general quality—indeed, it ranks among the more expertly crafted hours of the programme—but from its cavalier and flagrant departure from historical truth in pursuit of cinematic thrills. This episode represents the point where the series’ admirable dramatic compression begins to significantly outweigh its commitment to veracity, resulting in a thrilling, often darkly humorous, yet ultimately ahistorical piece of partisan myth-making.

The plot is set in motion with characteristic efficiency. ‘Tihi’ arrives at the Belgrade Municipal Mushroom Farm to meet the chief agronomist, Branko (Ramiz Sekić), a resistance member. Here, he learns of plans for a major sabotage operation. The expertise required draws in two operatives from across the river: ‘Cibe’ (Ratislav Jović), an explosives expert, and ‘Zoran’ (Mida Stevanović), who cross from Zemun in the fascist Independent State of Croatia into German-occupied Belgrade. The episode’s titular mushrooms provide the central, almost farcical, narrative device. They serve as the pretext for ‘Prle’ to infiltrate the home of a minister (Janez Vrhovec) in Milan Nedić’s collaborationist government. Posing as a delivery boy, Prle first seduces the minister’s housemaid, Marija (Vesna Pećanac), to secure his access. After delivering the mushrooms to the minister’s wife, Melanija (Nada Kasapić), he secretly remains overnight in Marija’s room. Under cover of darkness, he slips into the minister’s study to steal plans for the main post office and telephone exchange from his safe. The minister himself is preoccupied with a card game with a German general, a circumstance that should favour Prle. However, a run of bad luck forces the minister to visit the safe for more cash, compelling Prle to hide behind a curtain at the critical moment. The minister dismisses the noise as the family cat, allowing Prle a narrow escape with the vital documents.

The consequences of this theft unfold with grim inevitability. Later, on a winning streak, the minister returns to deposit his earnings and discovers the missing plans. Reconstruction of events is swift. The Special Police arrest Marija, and a subsequent raid on the Mushroom Farm ends with Branko and Zoran being killed while resisting arrest. Gestapo Colonel Müller, seeing that the stolen plans included details of a fuel storage facility, orders Major Krieger to reinforce its security, hoping to set a trap. However, the Partisans’ true target is the central post office itself. In a daring operation, Prle, Tihi, Paja, and Cibe infiltrate the building disguised as German soldiers, using a stolen vehicle. Cibe, the consummate professional, has ample time to place his explosives for maximum destructive effect. Their exit, however, is compromised when an alarm sounds, triggering a frantic firefight as they battle their way out. They reach their getaway car, but in a moment of poetic, tragic pride, Cibe hesitates, yearning to hear his handiwork detonate. This brief pause is fatal; he is struck by a bullet and dies in the fleeing car, with Prle voicing a bitter lament that a comrade has been lost for a mere post office.

One of the episode’s defining and most successful aspects is its insistence on levity, even amidst grave peril. The humour often emanates from Prle’s incorrigible character. In the final assault, he must be chastised for lustfully gazing at Wehrmacht female telephone operators. His successful seduction of Marija sets off a domestic chain reaction within the minister’s household, as his wife drags him to the proverbial doghouse after finding cigarette butts in the maid’s room, mistakenly believing them to be his. This domestic farce is cleverly intercut with the central heist, the irony underscored by the card game’s fortunes: the minister’s losing streak perfectly coincides with Prle’s successful theft. This blending of bedroom comedy, suspense, and ironic juxtaposition showcases the episode’s sophisticated and confident screenplay.

Where Pečurke fundamentally falters, however, is in its relationship to history. The final, spectacular shootout, replete with gunfire and fallen ‘redshirt’ German soldiers, is compelling cinema but pure fiction. The Belgrade Main Post Office was indeed damaged during the Second World War, but this occurred during the initial German aerial bombardment in April 1941, prior to the occupation. Throughout the occupation, the post office remained operational and was never the target of a significant sabotage action by the Belgrade resistance. The episode unconsciously appropriates a feat from a different struggle. A major post office was successfully and devastatingly bombed by the resistance on September 14th, 1941, but this was in Zagreb, the capital of the Independent State of Croatia. That action, which degraded German telecommunications in Southeast Europe for months, was later dramatised in the 1982 television series Nepokoreni grad (in the episode E4–72-96), often considered a thematic counterpart or response to Otpisani.

The historical irony deepens upon examining the minister character. He is portrayed with superb, weary cynicism by Janez Vrhovec. While unnamed in the episode, the character is clearly based on General Josif Kostić (1878–1960), the real Minister of Posts in Nedić’s government. In a curious twist, this fictionalised portrayal, down to Vrhovec’s performance, is arguably the episode’s most historically accurate element, a fact reinforced when the actor reprised the role in the 1978 sequel series, Povratak otpisanih.

Despite its brazen historical licence, Pečurke is a expertly constructed piece of television. The direction is taut, particularly in the extended sequence of the document theft, which masterfully balances nail-biting suspense with the dark comedy of the minister’s card-night misfortunes. The dialogue is sharp, the character interactions are lively, and the action sequences are choreographed with a clarity often missing from modern counterparts. It is, in essence, a superb episode of television built upon an unsound historical foundation. It sacrifices the specific truth of Belgrade’s resistance for a universal, crowd-pleasing myth of daring, humour, and sacrifice—a myth that, as the episode itself admits with Cibe’s death, can come at a cost that feels, even to its protagonists, curiously disproportionate.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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