Riveting... fascinating... timely... Intriguingly dealing with the politics of aesthetics and the aesthetics of politics, issues seldom explored in American docus, this aptly titled work uses a postmodern, quasi-Godardian sensibility to show how politics invades every facet of artistic creation and how integral ideology is to the understanding of the structure and signification of images... An extremely rich tapestry of historical events and their mythic implications in both art and politics unfolds onscreen, switching back and forth between the past and present of a region dominated by many regimes over the past century.

-- Emanuel Levy, Variety, Feb. 26 - March 3, 1996
[for article click here]

A better than very well-made documentary. The film exposes the ideological mechanisms that sank the former Yugoslavia, in only a few years, into nationalist rhetoric, ethnic hatred and mass manipulation.

--Hans Beerekamp, NRC Handelsblad (The Netherlands), March 13, 1996
[for article click here]



It's complacent rock band that doesn't yearn to storm the Bastille, smash the state, incite panic, and inflame the mass libido with the music of the Apocalypse - at least in a video. But, if the Elvis-Woodstock-Sex Pistols notion of rock-'n'-roll collective ecstasy has been consigned to the museum of 20th century-isms, the news has yet to reach Slovenia, home of Laibach - the industrial art-rockers cum media-wise conceptual artists who are the subject of Michael Benson's pleasingly bombastic Predictions of Fire. Sensational... a 20th Century saga.

-- J. Hoberman, The Village Voice,October 8, 1996
[for article click here]



Stunning... Not to be missed.

-- Annemarie Jonson, RealTime/OnScreen (Sydney, Australia), July 1996



The cult of domination. The language of manipulation. By exorcising these cults at different stages, using identical language, NSK both destroys and provokes our own conformism, social inertia and oppression. Benson’s film even gives us fascist and Stalinist monumentalism -- the ideological surroundings of NSK in space and time -- with a sense of humor. This film is a true contribution to our understanding of NSK’s work, which means to our understanding of our own barbaric civilization. Unlike Kusturica or Zafranovic, Benson gives you a wider context – it goes well beyond the horizon of Tito’s self-managed workers’ paradise.

-- Benjamin Perasovic, AS/Andere Sinema (Belgium), Spring, 1996
[for article click here]


A mesmerizing, mind-blowing look at the uneasy mixing of politics and art in Eastern Europe... explores the history of totalitarianism in Yugoslavia and how the government pushed its oppressive ideology by incorperating it into art... "Predictions of Fire" plays out just like the subject it covers - it's a series of hypnotic, relentlessly hammering images that blast at the brain like the sharpest, most calculating propaganda films. Director Michael Benson launches his amazing audio-visual assault by focusing on the controversial performance-art/industrial-rock group Laibach - champions of a new avant-garde art movement called NSK (New Slovenian Arts)... Completely original.

-- Bill Hoffmann, The New York Post, October 2, 1996
[for article click here]



A provocative, dense and demanding exploration of the relationship of art, politics and war as it has been played out over the turbulent 20th century in what was once Yugoslavia

-- Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1997
[for article click here]



A filmic signifier par excellance.

-- Stojan Pelko, Ekran (Slovenia), Spring-Summer 1996
[for article click here]



Brilliantly nutty... This unnerving film helped me to see how any culture that's endured shifting totalitarian systems might find all imagery absurd.

-- Fred Camper, "Critics Choice" review, Chicago Reader, July 5, 1996
[for article click here]



The Communist culture so angrily mocked by the Slovenian artists' collective called NSK may no longer physically exist in Eastern Europe but it remains a country of the mind -- a place filled with vivid imagery of endless military parades, huge posters of balding leaders and towering, surreal statues of heroic workers. Michael Benson's fascinating documentary "Predictions of Fire" explores that stubbornly real subjective landscape by tracking the activities, from the early, pre-fall '80's to today, of the NSK group... Benson's film becomes a history of modern-day Yugoslavia, tracing the ways in which this potent imagery was used to serve the needs of the state, and later to feed the ethnic hatreds that arose after its fall.

-- Dave Kehr, Daily News (NYC), October 2, 1996
[for article click here]



Michael Benson's Predictions of Fire is a provocative, dense and demanding exploration of the relationship of art, politics and war as it has been played out over the turbulent 20th century in what was once Yugoslavia.

-- Kevin Thomas, The Los Angeles Times, February 14, 1997
[for article click here]



The notion that art and politics are profoundly intertwined may seem remote to most Americans, give or take the occasional controversy over government support for the arts. But in Europe, where totalitarian states have trampled on free expression and appropriated the myths and rituals of art to serve their oppressive ends, it is a very different story. As Michael Benson, an American journalist and film maker, suggests in his ominous, intellectually provocative film, "Predictions of Fire," both Hitler, an art school reject and Stalin, a self-described engineer of human souls, were dictators who established states that could be viewed as enormous works of art.

-- Stephen Holden, The New York Times, October 2, 1996
[for article click here]



Michael Benson proves with this film that he has a perfect grasp of the aestheticization of politics as well as of myth- creation within totalitarian systems. Predictions of Fire skillfully exchanges archival, reportorial and also fictional scenes, which together make a new story. It places the NSK movement within a historical framework – something which didn't happen for any other of the artistic avant gardes. Predictions of Fire doesn't for a moment try to hide what it's all about: how to fascinate with manipulation.

-- Nerina Kocjancic, Delo (Slovenia), October 26, 1995



With a few notable Reagan-era exceptions, the American art world has generally kept a wary distance from politics, only occasionally being dragged into the fray as a right-wing whipping boy. Which partly explains why the work of NSK, the Slovenian art collective that has followed a program of political provocation in the heart of the rather easily provoked Balkans since 1980, is at once so refreshing and unnerving. NSK, the subject of this intriguing documentary, is made up of the celebrated painting ensemble Irwin, the theater group Red Pilot and the industrial dance band Laibach. Together they seek to reclaim the mythmaking aesthetic of the state in an attempt to "expose the hidden mechanisms of ideological manipulation" and "make Evil lose its nerves."

-- Aaron Gell, TimeOut New York, October 3-10, 1996
[for article click here]



The interest in the film undoubtedly shows the big international reputation of our avant-gardists - or at least their familiarity to the audience. However, it is more important that Benson also showed, along with the phenomenon of NSK, their ideological and historical background. It means that he gave a short, and filmically quite effective, course in 20th Century Slovenian history. It is my conviction that many in the hall "really," for the first time, saw and heard Ljubljana - realizing, for the first time, that Slovenia as a matter of fact is not Yugoslavia, and learning, for the first time, that something exists between Austria and Italy which they would never have ordinarily thought about.

-- Peter Kolsek, Delo (Slovenia), February 19, 1996
[for article click here]


Well-made, fascinating, and pensive, Predictions of Fire is essential viewing for historians, artists, and anyone who isn't afraid to confront fundamental questions about humanity in the 21st century.

-- Kevin McAlester, The Met (Dallas/Fort Worth), January 10, 1996
[for article click here]



Benson has realized correctly that the NSK in the 80's is a lot more advanced and powerful than for example the dissidents in East Germany.

-- Thomas Gross, Die Tagezeitung (Berlin), July 5, 1996
[for article click here]



The documentary is fascinating and extremely well-made, and uses a variety of animation, propaganda, art, concert footage and live action material, as well as lengthy and profoundly interesting lectures and discussions about art, politics and history. For these things alone, "Predictions of Fire" is well worth seeing.

-- Henry Cabot Beck, The Star-Ledger (Newark, New Jersey), October 2, 1996
[for article click here]



Although Predictions of Fire presents the work of the NSK collective and relates it to the history of ex-Yugoslavia, it is more than just an art documentary. Benson's film provides surprising insight into the conflicts of a collapsing state, as it does into the trauma of each East and Central European person who over generations grew up under the yoke of totalitarian regimes.

-- Bernd Teichmann, Moving Pictures (Berlin), February 17, 1996
[for article click here]



Laibach's dense sound, with mysterious, deep vocals and dark themes, may be confused with Gothic, but viewing of Predictions of Fire shows the band to be practitioners of their own genre - a jarring sound developed out of political repression. Indeed the history lessons, interspersed with portrayal of NSK's various artistic arms, supported by newsreel-style clips, are industrial in structure. The combo of art and politics and modern music gives the video look of Predictions of Fire a sheen like a hybrid of the History Channel and MTV.

-- On Film, Houston, Texas
[for article click here]



Predictions of Fire has the look of an old high school science film -- charts, diagrams, and drawings, accompanied by the rapid-fire warblings of a disembodied narrator -- but it feels like a postmodern nightmare. In an arresting display of editing skill, Benson reveals tensions between past and present, cause and effect, as he interweaves archival footage of fascist rallies with the pounding apocalyptic rock of Laibach. Hypnotic and intellectually demanding.

-- Lawrence A. Terenzi, Planet Lunch, 1996
[for article click here]



On Friday, October 20th, the documentary Predictions of Fire, a co-production of TV Slovenia and Kinetikon Pictures of New York, was premiered; the last shots of the 90-minute film were accompanied by the spontaneous applause of the audience. Predictions of Fire will for sure be one of the most-watched of documentaries about any Slovene art
movement, not only in Slovenia but, especially, abroad. The director is Michael Benson; as a foreigner and author(ity), he is in the unenviable role of outsider on one side and documentarist and interpreter on the other. He assembles the workings of NSK and also uses them to put together a comprehensive picture of the workings of totalitarian systems in the whole of Europe. The West European and American mind will get a clear picture of the phenomenon: how is it possible, the position of Slovenia in ex-Yugoslavia? Predictions of Fire is an informative and watchable documentary about art, politics and war because it puts NSK in a historical and geographical frame, untainted by "patriotic" pathos. We're used to such pathos; we've seen it in other Slovene documentaries (do you remember Bravo, the one-hour TV documentary about Laibach produced in 1993, which pretentiously polemicizes with the group while simply compiling different pre-existing documentary shots?). The reason why you watch this film to the end is not only the magic of seeing the newest image of Slovenian history through the prism of NSK, but the imaginative use of film language with intellectual charm.

-- Maja Manojlovic, Delo (Slovenia), October 30, 1995



Benson's filmmaking style contains echoes of a totalitarian aesthetic, as invented by the famous Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will. Strong, iconic shots of rings of fire alternate with archival footage of flocks of school children doing calisthenics in unison, waves of marching boots, a line of rising flags. His method of combining "found" footage with up-to-date commentary is reminiscent of American experimental filmmaker Craig Baldwin's work--which uses archival footage to poke at consumerism and artistic censorship, among other things. Here, Benson seeks to criticize the whole totalitarian aesthetic in the same way that the subjects of his film do--by adopting it themselves. Predictions of Fire is a stylish, rewarding documentary that presents an interesting way of looking at the connections between art and politics.

-- Stacey Richter, Tucson Weekly, November 17, 1997
[for article click here]



The film is as efficient as every NSK performance has been... The documentary is a skillful and witty interweaving of Slovenian history within the fabric of a Western European historical background, and it threads some of the important NSK performances through, well-accompanied by striking NSK music and texts.

-- Pavel Fajdiga, Slovenec (Slovenia), October 24 1995



This is a significant film. Perhaps taken no more seriously during the 80’s than Nostradamus may have been in his time, Laibach shown by Benson are provocative journalists and savagely talented artists. One would only hope that this document would help to unglue the paralyzed world opinion on the sad deterioration and self-destruction of Yugoslavia which may presage the death of the West itself. They were said to take the system more seriously than it took itself, and in the bodycount alone, Laibach was proven correct in historical analysis. Refreshing. Unnerving. Seductive. Fascinating. Provocative.

-- Marc Sane, Poison Apple (NYC), January 23, 1997
[for article click here]



Predictions of Fire is without a doubt one of the most persuasive -- and not the least, the most watchable -- contributions to the history of the Slovene 20th century, at least in the genre of tele-documentaries. With this film Michael Benson undoubtedly proved (once again) that the gaze of an outsider has precious advantages.

-- Marko Crnkovic, Razgledje (Slovenia), October 1995



Besides being an international film festival favorite (Canada, Russia, New York, Sundance, Sydney), Predictions of Fire has gained such swift cult status that it may be the only movie with a website dedicated to "all discernible written, spoken, sung, or shouted words." Dark, broody, and revealing.

-- Gerald A. Notaro, MC Journal Reviews, Fall 1996
[for article click here]



The central quality of the film is that it is multifaceted, but it clearly and understandibly illuminates the theoretical background of NSK (and NSK's taking over of the mechanisms and symbols of power in order to reveal this power). In conformity with the NSK principle, Predictions of Fire's filmic images of the history of NSK and the history of Slovenia are themselves questioned as constructs based on the selection of certain events and their mythologization.

-- Vesna Rojko, Republika (Slovenia), October 27, 1995



NSK practices retroactivism -- it activates the past as a clinical picture of the future. NSK works progressively and retroactively, as a symptom which simultaneously refers back to the very first germs of the disease and points forward to its later contamination and spread. With his film Predictions of Fire, Michael Benson re-activates the virus with retroactive force, arriving to disturb the deceitful silence again. Curious what the final diagnosis will be.

-- Tom Paulus, AS/Andere Sinema (Belgium), Spring, 1996
[for article click here]



A documentary about the Eastern European art collective NSK (that's New Slovenian Arts to you), which comprises art rockers Laibach, theater troupe Red Pilot and painting group Irwin. Former New York Times reporter [sic] Michael Benson sets NSK's art against the convoluted and turbulent history of the former Yugoslavia, and grapples with complex questions of aesthetics and politics in a surprisingly entertaining way. At the core is the question of whether NSK's appropriation of fascist iconography is ironic anti-agitprop, or itself a form of dangerous propaganda.

-- TV Guide, Summer 1996



Michael Benson’s brilliant film Predictions of Fire follows a Slovene art collective in the 1980s as they redeploy vanguard symbols, both Russian and German, from the early twentieth century. They believe that these residual symbols were embers of a totalitarian collectivism that also lay smoldering in the socialist state. Art itself was a potential conflagration, to be deflected into the symbolic. Were they right to play with fire? In any case, Slovenia escaped the worst.

--Brian Holmes, Art Journal, Winter 2000 (review of Kosov@: Carnival in the Eye of a Storm, an exhibition at Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland,Oregon, April 6-29, 2000)