Liebe und andere Verbrechen

Serbian cinema is again at the tops! This was a love story of the kind nobody else would think to put on screen. Yet it is so much more closer to those (un)happening in reality. Very sad and very deep and very simple film. Just a day of a few people in their late youth, in a Belgrade suburb of tower blocks, illustrates the throes of an entire generation caught in the postcommunist period (or shall I say, the postcommunist abyss).

Leaving everything behind and starting a new life somewhere else is not as easy as we know it from the movies. Staying, on the other hand, is a limbo. But when your heart is so kind, is ever a new beginning possible?

'Besa me mucho' runs a hundred times, it is the only soundtrack. The grey concrete blocks are unexpectedly beautiful, it is the only landscape. The petty post-communist gangsters are confusingly human and sympathetic, it is the main characters.

Stefan Arsenijevic fairly got the director's award of the 2008 Sofia Film Festival 'for the humanity and lyricism of his style'. The other Serbian entry, 'Hadersfild', was also a very powerful film.

You may have seen my raves over Klopka from last year's Berlinale, but this year's offering was Love and Other Crimes (Ljubav i Drugi Zlocini in the original Serbian). I got excited the moment the film started rolling and I saw it starred Klopka's haunting Anica Dobra. At the end I stood up and asked, "What on earth is happening in Serbian film and how can we see MORE?" As an American, I can't help viewing the societal collapses endemic to Eastern Europe as the stimulus behind this post-modern film noir. But the director surprised me by answering my query in this vein with a note of optimism. Sure, of course, the end of open warfare is a definite positive, but to then see your society descend into the grips of common criminals in the inexorable name of capitalism, can hardly be optimistic!? I left the theater with the feeling that this particular young director had somehow surpassed himself, overreached his inherent ability. How wonderful when this is in service to art, and with the endlessly expressive face of Dobra, it is not hard to imagine this happening. Then, in further researching the film, I see a common thread -- Srdjan Koljevic, the co-writer -- and ask myself if perhaps he is the one to watch?

As someone else (reviewer) stated here too, after "Klopka" comes this gem of Serbian cinema. A slow moving love drama, that's not really trying to blend in.

While you might think or expect conventional love drama fare, you will be treated to somewhat more complex (dare I say even more philosophical)! As stated in the summary line it won't be to anyone's taste, especially if you're more in the blockbuster area, then this won't be your cup of tea. Well I liked it and you will too, if you let yourself into the characters and don't mind one song (Besame...) being repeated a few times in the movie ...

I liked this movie, which I saw at the Berlinale 2008. It even grows after a while - which is a great thing for any work of art (and love) Surely there must have gone a lot of love into making this movie - otherwise its not explainable why this portrait of a grim and Grey Serbian skyscraper quarter is so strong, believable and sometimes even beautiful in a strange way. Here in German Cinema there are a lot of examples of films with a social theme , portraying a dark reality but a lot of times they don't quite succeed -neither in the portrayal of society nor in cinematic terms. This film, coming from a small country like Serbia - which was still a war zone around 10 years ago - is a fresh example how to do it with success.

You know you watched a really good film, when the credits end, and you caught yourself still sitting and thinking about the movie and all the messages entangled into it. I know it happened to me after Watching "Love and Other Crimes". The all-too-familiar ambient of the New Belgrade, Socialist style buildings and the people living there become a stage where the whole action of the movie is happening. What you see is people caught in the web of the past decisions, now time long regretting them, and without any bright future on their horizon. Their lives are put into the scope through the actions of the main protagonist, Anica, and her last 24 hours before permanently leaving this dark and gloomy place. She exacts her own justice (or should I say revenge) to all the people who where or still are important to her. But, when the young boy from the hood, Stefan, admits that he's in love with her, everything is about to change… This movie is about two most important things: Love…and change. It goes without saying, one cannot exist without other. Without love, there is no reason to change. But without love for yourself, there is no need to change, and that is far more destructive way to look and be in this world. From the begging to the end, this film shows us that by turning to yourself you start to heal not just your own mind and soul, but you also start the same thing in the people around you. Kudos to Stefan and the whole crew of this wonderful movie!