Speaking of Yugoslav films, we immediately think of "Walter Defends Sarajevo", the song "Ah, Goodbye Friends" and the poetic lines of "The earth trembles as if the sky is burning". The film we are talking about now has no heroic spirit in our impression at all. The absurdity of the plot is like life itself. Whether the bold imagination is a fantasy or an ideal, I am afraid it is a matter of opinion.
Belgrade in 1941, like all World War II titles, is full of worldly, peaceful joy. The pipe band threw the money. And this band seems to have been accompanying the movie all the time. The music is simple and cheerful. They are everywhere. Even in the dark underground castle, people are singing day and night. Mark and Peter are both like devil kings. When the German bomb blew Belgrade to shreds, one of them was asking the prostitute to have sex to the end, and the other must have his wife fill his stomach at home.
Bombed Belgrade takes on the first surreal absurdity. Mark's younger brother is an animal breeder. The bombed zoo is full of animal carcasses. Elephants ran out and took Peter's shoes, but there was only rubble in the city, and no mourning crowds or human carcasses could be seen. So Peter can still seduce the actress Natasha, although this amorous woman has already given her arms to the German officer.
More absurd plots followed. Peter and Mark engaged in German arms and took their wife and family into an underground castle. Peter's wife gave birth to their child Zufan underground and died of blood loss. In fact, the real tunnel battle began when Peter was blown off by a grenade. Peter was injured, so that only Mark could contact Tito on the ground, and brought the task arranged by Tito - to open an underground arsenal to manufacture weapons. So Mark occupied Natasha on the one hand, and on the other hand concealed the fact that Germany was defeated and surrendered. The people underground have been producing a large number of arms for the liberation of the motherland. Mark lives on the tunnel. He made an air raid siren, and it sounds from time to time to notify the comrades in the underground to make them false alarm, but those guns and ammunition are not. make him rich.
Zu Fan has spent fifteen years underground, but in fact he is already twenty years old, because Mark instructed someone to slow down the only big bell underground. Zufan's wedding night, drunk Peter and his son ran to the ground to prepare for the final battle for the liberation of the motherland, the result appeared in the plot of many comedy movies - a team of film crews are shooting the hero of World War II hero Peter The story, perhaps called Peter Defending Belgrade, but the German soldiers in it, especially the actor who plays Natasha's lover, caught Peter's attention, and a raid began, a comedic slaughter accompanied by a fast-paced The music is going on, and I think some audience members will laugh out loud at this time, but maybe they will cry.
Also running to the ground were Sony the gorilla and Mark's younger brother, who was chasing him. When he found out Mark's big lie, he thought it was absurd and went crazy.
Years later in the Yugoslav civil war, Mark became a wheelchair-bound arms dealer and was wanted. As a wartime officer, Peter was majestic. When he heard his subordinates report that he had caught a bad guy, he ordered to be shot without even being depressed. In fact, Mark had already been killed by his brother who happened to find him, and Natasha was grief-stricken. Throwing on Mark's body, the soldiers doused it with gasoline and burned it together. Peter regrets it when he finds out that in the burning wheelchair is his former friend and former lover. It is worth mentioning that this burning wheelchair, with two charred human bodies sitting on it, turned in a weird circle in front of Peter, making people feel helpless.
The last episode in the movie is a complete fantasy and has a title called "If there is no war", all the dead people are all resurrected, and there is a Zufan wedding by the river, Peter, his wife and all relatives and friends. Beaming, even though the Marks were a little embarrassed when they first arrived, they were such good friends, so they could get along very quickly, they danced, the band played the cheerful melody we were familiar with again, and then the river bank collapsed. A large piece of land was split up and became a drifting island, and the people on the island who were enjoying joy, prosperity and peace drifted into the distance.
Director Kusturica was born in Sarajevo in 1954. I think no matter how crazy and absurd this film is, there is something serious about it that can be called Yugoslav complex. This rising star, who is already an international director, uses the madness The hilarious means of hollowing out the last bit of happiness in people, and then throwing us into the empty square after the madness, the sobriety after the intoxication shivering in the cold wind of the morning, if I were a Yugoslav, I would find a place to cry.
April 2004
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