The classic work of the Serbian writer Borisav Stanković from the beginning of the 20th century has undergone a new adaptation. As far as I saw, apart from the film set in the middle of the 19th century in Vranje in the south of today’s Serbia, in an area that was then part of the Turkish Empire, Milutin Petrovic also shot a series (which I skipped, at least for now). And she had “NEČISTA KRV – GREH PREDAKA English (BAD BLOOD) ” very well in Serbian cinemas, and the historical circumstances and relations between the domicile Orthodox and the conquering Turkish population were presented in a quality way. Although the authors obviously tried to add a bit of a Western touch to this whole story, for me it was at times on the level of an erotic soap opera.
Hadži-Trifun (Dragan Bjelogrlić) is a respectable merchant and a kind of elder of the Serbian population in that area. But just like the rest of the non-Muslim population, he has to pay taxes, and in addition to being in constant conflict and fighting for supremacy with local Turkish ruler Xhafer Bey, he will also find himself in family trouble. The main of these problems will be with the young and beautiful daughter-in-law Tasana (Andjela Jovanovic), the widow of his son George, who is still nominally in the mourning phase, but she is in love with a local priest. A rich and powerful Turk, who asks Haxhi-Trifun to hand it over to him, also cast an eye on her.
There is also Hadži-Trifun’s younger sister Cone (Katarina Radivojević) who found the current pastime in the young singer, and it seems that she enjoys intrigue as much as her brother, although the very existence of her character remained unclear to me. But we will see to the end that Haxhi-Trifun played a bit with that combinatorics and games in which he is undoubtedly skilled, and although “Impure Blood” solidly shows not only the relations between Turks and Serbs of that time, but also how complete it was patriarchal society, I have a lot left unsaid. Primarily characters who mostly remained undeveloped and probably the series did a lot more in that regard and there was time to go into depth. Nevertheless, “Impure Blood” was a quality social chronicle of a cruel time in which, even more than interethnic frictions, we follow complicated family relationships and their intrigues, manipulations, love, adultery. With a few drops of shed blood.