crap

Rating: 1/10 (16 September 1999)

I don't know why everybody likes this film. At least in the user ratings there were more people rating it as awful (1) than people who gave it at least an 8.
The point of the story is obvious: Kusturica wants to give an account of the history of his people since the 40ies. He puts this into the form of a satire showing people living underground without realizing what is going on "on the surface" - in real life. Conflicts resulting and consequences (nation falling apart, war) are unavoidable. Good idea for the story, so far.
But what a horrible show does Kusturica make of this! Pointlessly the story drags on forever from one set to the other all of which want to show us something important, something that can only be understood metaphorically or at second sight. The whole plot is split up into several long-drawn-out parts, the last one of which ends in Berlin - nobody knows why. (Does Kusturica perhaps think about that fascist Ex-Yugoslav war spreading over the rest of Europe, eventually?) The two protagonists are being shown in a justifiable - let alone sympathetic manner - pretending to everybody: "Well it is a tragedy with our people and our history, but that is the way we are...this is our way of life - we cannot help it..." By and by you feel like wanting to shout out loud (if only Kusturica sat in the cinema) "FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, COME TO THE POINT, PLEASE..!" In fact, if this movie really shows something the basic mentality of the Ex-Yugoslav people - why do we still keep asking ourselves why they don't get their acts together to come to terms with their political problems?!
This film really got on my nerves. If I had not been stuck in this crammed cinema right in the middle of narrow rows of seats I would not have finished watching it. And then it had overlength whereas I had given up hope that the plot would become any better by the middle of it... The pictures themselves are brilliant, it is true, they recall Fellini's films - yet only in that point. But then again, there was that terrible disharmonious brass music with it, starting in regular, unpleasant intervals.
Did I get anything wrong? I felt like being talked at by a mad preacher trying to convince me with his distorted, pathetic view of god and the world, instead of seeing a good and entertaining story, with a well written plot with some - at least some - suspense in it.
This is one of the most embarrassing films that I have ever seen. I give it a 1 (awful) in the rating. But only because there is no 0 to be given. If a director knows how to make a good picture but does not find a way to express his views in a good story he should either keep on trying until he can or do documentaries instead of political satires.