It puts you right there, inside the circulus viciosus

Rating: 10/10 (9 December 2003)

For anyone interested in Kusturica's work, this is my favorite. Don't get discouraged because it's set someplace you never traveled before... People are all alike. You'll recognize the patterns easily.
It tells a story how come a country which appeared to everyone inside as an uniquely ideal world (they aren't aware where they are) could abruptly dissolve in a really, really bloody war the moment that the outside interferes... And more then that: it lets you LIVE AND LEARN through this experience yourself! It tells what time heals, or can't heal. It tells a lot about people, and about powers of mass deception, and examines personal issues arising from such a condition. It talks about a different set of values, which can be understood only in a specific situation. It makes you understand the Balkans as well as any other region held together by a weird, claustrophobic mix of hundreds of years of love and war on a small piece of land, a thread so fragile that it would break if love gets any more removed from war then it ever was.
The sense of time in this movie is marvelously directed, and the reason it starts as an action flick but then at one point starts to drag towards the end is... because there is always, always a slowdown just before the next big boom/collapse; don't fight this feeling or you'll miss on the experience.
It is like the Truman Show without the Hollywood ending.
The movie is based on a play from Serbian master playwright, Dusan Kovacevic. Anything based on his plays is well worth the watching.