In the film Broken English, the viewer is introduced to a Croatian family trying to make a new life for themselves in Auckland New Zealand. At the head of the family is the controlling father figure, Ivan.
Although the family has escaped a war torn country, Ivan still has a strong attachment to Croatia. He receives newspapers and videos from relatives back in his home country that he pours over, and the majority of Ivan's associates that we see in the film are also mainly Croatian (there is one part in the film when the actors are sitting around and playing cards that Ivan looks disdainfully at a white kiwi male when he asks what something Ivan said in Croatian means in English - something the majority of those in the scene did not need help translating).
Ivan realizes that his family is better off living in New Zealand than in Croatia (he even pays for his Auntie to move over to be with them) yet at the same time claims indignantly that, “This is not my country!”
Ivan's refusal to assimilate his family fully into the New Zealand way of life is represented in his family's house and grounds. The house is sealed off from the outside world by big fences and gates, yet right next door they have a pacific island community, which Ivan does not mix with (only speaking to them out of necessity when conversation is instigated by the Polynesians) even though they can see their neighbors and hear them through the fence
The grounds are also barren of any plant life. There are no trees taking roots, just as Ivan seems defiant in planting his own roots in his new country. This is contrasted by his wife, who buys various ornaments to help beautify their home - something that Ivan detests, as if they represent the fact that his family is now there to stay and he will never again return to Croatia.
