Pretty Village Pretty Flame (1996)
(Lepa sela lepo gore)
Country: SER
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Srdan Dragojevic
Cast: Dragan Bjelogrlic, Nikola Kojo, Dragan Maksimovic, Lisa Moncure
Synopsis:
Childhood friends, one a Muslim, the other a Serb, run a garage together, then fight on opposing sides in the 1992 civil war, only to confront one another in the same disused tunnel they had not dared enter as children for fear of awakening the ogre that lived there.
Review:
The bulk of this stunning film takes place in the tunnel (and it does indeed seem a long siege, not unlike the central situation of Pork Chop Hill), but throughout the director weaves reminiscences of earlier times (joining up, childhood) and flashforwards to a Belgrade hospital two years later. Dragojevic's movie is full of energy and sarcasm, like Kusturica's Underground, but, unlike that film, direct in its assault on the viscera. It mercilessly analyses the personality crisis of a country split apart by racial hatred yet held together by shared experience, and throws in some telling comment on post-Tito Serbian politics. At the same time it is not above alluding to more romantic concepts of heroism, as in the Wild Bunch 'Let's go.'-'Why not?' quotation, hinting that the deluded individuals trapped in the tunnel are still able to die a glorious death in a vain cause.
(Lepa sela lepo gore)
Country: SER
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Srdan Dragojevic
Cast: Dragan Bjelogrlic, Nikola Kojo, Dragan Maksimovic, Lisa Moncure
Synopsis:
Childhood friends, one a Muslim, the other a Serb, run a garage together, then fight on opposing sides in the 1992 civil war, only to confront one another in the same disused tunnel they had not dared enter as children for fear of awakening the ogre that lived there.
Review:
The bulk of this stunning film takes place in the tunnel (and it does indeed seem a long siege, not unlike the central situation of Pork Chop Hill), but throughout the director weaves reminiscences of earlier times (joining up, childhood) and flashforwards to a Belgrade hospital two years later. Dragojevic's movie is full of energy and sarcasm, like Kusturica's Underground, but, unlike that film, direct in its assault on the viscera. It mercilessly analyses the personality crisis of a country split apart by racial hatred yet held together by shared experience, and throws in some telling comment on post-Tito Serbian politics. At the same time it is not above alluding to more romantic concepts of heroism, as in the Wild Bunch 'Let's go.'-'Why not?' quotation, hinting that the deluded individuals trapped in the tunnel are still able to die a glorious death in a vain cause.
(Lepa sela lepo gore)
Country: SER
Technical: col/scope 129m
Director: Srdan Dragojevic
Cast: Dragan Bjelogrlic, Nikola Kojo, Dragan Maksimovic, Lisa Moncure
Synopsis:
Childhood friends, one a Muslim, the other a Serb, run a garage together, then fight on opposing sides in the 1992 civil war, only to confront one another in the same disused tunnel they had not dared enter as children for fear of awakening the ogre that lived there.
Review:
The bulk of this stunning film takes place in the tunnel (and it does indeed seem a long siege, not unlike the central situation of Pork Chop Hill), but throughout the director weaves reminiscences of earlier times (joining up, childhood) and flashforwards to a Belgrade hospital two years later. Dragojevic's movie is full of energy and sarcasm, like Kusturica's Underground, but, unlike that film, direct in its assault on the viscera. It mercilessly analyses the personality crisis of a country split apart by racial hatred yet held together by shared experience, and throws in some telling comment on post-Tito Serbian politics. At the same time it is not above alluding to more romantic concepts of heroism, as in the Wild Bunch 'Let's go.'-'Why not?' quotation, hinting that the deluded individuals trapped in the tunnel are still able to die a glorious death in a vain cause.