Schöne tote Mädchen

I haven't seen any Croatian film made since the beginning of war. It's funny to see actors we used to know ten or fifteen years older now.

In this film I liked the production - camera, photography and editing are really professional - you wouldn't say it was made on Balkans. Acting is mostly OK as well.

On the other side, the directing and the story are pretty weak. Everything seems like one dark documentary (yes we know the Balkan really looks like that, and people are really like that). No artistic moments, no metaphors, whole story is explicitly presented, and I dislike this way of movie making. That's why the movie was boring to me, both the story and the way it will be told is predictable.

Though, film-making technique is really good and I guess Croatia can make some really good movies, this one is on the right way.

Fine mrtve djevojke or Fine Dead Girls is a really promising movie showing talent of a young director Dalibor Matanic. In some ways it is a very accurate picture of the Croatian society today. In the spotlight we see two girls (Olga Pakalovic and Nina Violic) that are looking not only for the apartment to live in, but also a place where they could lead their lives as they want to. People that they meet, and the events that occur are as dark as realistic. The palette of characters is very interesting, although I was very pleased with the performance of Inge Appelt who played the old woman. A fine dose of humor is very well mixed with scenes of brutality. Definitely a good movie that i would recommend to anyone.

A movie was a mirror of a situation in Croatia toward sexual minorities at the time. It is directed by one of best directors in Croatia (Dalibor Matanic)and the cast is also very good (Olga Pakalović, Inge Appelt, Ivica Vidović...). Even so, the pour drama academy in Croatia makes the actors play their rolls both in theatre and on the big screen as if playing a Shakespeare tragedy. Even so, it is a "must-see" movie from modern Croatian cinematography. A dramady, a story of a 2 lesbians that rent a flat hoping to keep their things private turns around like a boomerang when the "nice", old landlady figures out their sexuality. A shocking twist makes way at the second part of the movie. Not a masterpiece, but surely a good movie that occurred in the time when homosexuality in Croatia was thought to be something seen only in USA blockbusters.

What these movie does is to show the intolerance, racism, and abuse in Croatia and it is laid bare for us to witness first hand, in this sometimes comedic, sometimes deeply disturbing snapshot of post war Croatia. One wonders why this country went to war when we witness what is left. It is sad to see such intolerance, homophobia and hatred of minorities, which, according to Amnesty International, still continues today. It is a great tribute to the makes of this film that they have had the courage to lay bare their country's legacy for the world to see.

Functioning less than a straight-out thriller than an intriguing slice of life in a golden-hued Zagreb in the early naughts, "Fine Dead Girls" presents a decrepit building in the Croatian capital as a microcosm of the former Yugoslav nation and its inhabitants as they try to pick up the pieces from a bloody not-so-distant past. Dalibor Matanic's saga liberally borrows from a lot of classics, but at least he vividly captures the tension and paranoia emanating from each individual, like an ex-army man who ostensibly beats up his wife, to a physician who does illegal abortion in his topmost room, and a man who can't let go of her wife even in death. At the center of such palette of idiosyncratic characters are a young lesbian couple played with understated effectiveness by Olga Pakalovic and Nina Violic. The two initially hide their relationship from a homophobic landlady with a highly chauvinistic son, but are eventually found out and soon find themselves spiraling into societal and moral conflicts. At its best, "Fine Dead Girls" is a meditative introspection into the Croatian psyche during the immediate post-war period, in which various societies struggle to forge an identity following the Balkan conflicts. Matanic doesn't give the film enough momentum to sustain an effective third act but "Fine Dead Girls" deftly paints a convincing portrait of a nation irresolutely trying to welcome every member with open arms regardless of orientation, even as it's raring to return to its feet.