Turneja

This is probably one of the greatest movies in ex-Yugoslavia in the last 20 years and maybe the best from brilliant director Goran Markovic (with "Nacionalna klasa" and "Variola vera"). Markovic also wrote the script that is vaugely based on factual happenings.

Naive half-member troupe from Belgrade National Theater embarks on an dangerous tour through Serbian Krajina in Bosnia. The time is 1993 and there is bloody, difficulty and abstract war between Serbs, Croats and Muslims. Company's intention is to perform Feydeau's vaudveville "A Flea in Her Ear" and to reanimate unwilling and disastrought folk in little town Srbobran. But, the situation soon gets worse and worse. In only three days the actors founds all horrors of Bosnian war.

The whole story try's to explain this conflict from very essence of spirit of the art. For me, this is by far most objective movie about civil war(s) in ex-Yugoslavia. There is also very fine amalgam of comedy and tragedy (for example, we have ridiculously and burlesque moments when leader of the troupe Stanislav tries to assure Croat Commander that they are Croat actors and just few minutes later there is distressing and touching part with 'Panther' Leaders and actress Sonja in mined territory.

The cast is superb. The great turn from main lead, especial from Chaplin-like tragicomical Tihomir Stanic (Stanislav) and ingenuine thrilling Jelena Djokic (Jadranka), gratefully movie inventions. Other four players from the troupe, Dragan Nikolic (old charmer Misko), Mira Furlan (middle-aged leading lady Sonja), Josif Tatic (tippler Zaki) and Gordan Kicic (young star Lale) give us irresistible performances. There is also series of brilliant supports: Slavko Stimac as Djuro, pacifist driver, Vojislav Brajovic as Ljubic, fascist war firebrand, Svetozar Cvetkovic as absentminded surgeon, Bogdan Diklic as sharp, cold hearted Croat Commander, Sergej Trifunovic as violent and hot blooded 'Panther' Leaders and many, many more.

Watch this great anti-war movie and you'll probably understand Balkan conflicts better. But, you'll also understand and take a liking to the actors, too.

I saw this film at Cinequest, a film festival in San Jose, California. I liked it very much and found it to be a very moving anti-war film. It has excellent acting and production values and had me engrossed throughout. Though to a Serb it may seem at first that the film falls into the usual demonization of the Serbs, actually all sides are portrayed as ready to commit terrible acts. This is true for the scene where the Croats are ready to force the actors to clear the mine field. They are saved only by the chance arrival of Serbian troops who then in turn force the Croats to clear the minefield. It is also true for the scene where the Serbian nationalist poet is taken prisoner by Muslim troops and we are given ample clues that he will meet a horrible end, though this is not shown on screen. I am an American anti-war activist with ties to what for me will always be Yugoslavia, not in agreement with the American bombing and not in agreement with savage nationalism either, no matter whose nationalism it is.

The film's heart is in the right place - wanting to make a movie about the absurdity of war and the arbitrary nature of nationalism (and the ultra- absurdity nature of ultranationalism). There is no right side, no good guys in white hats vs bad guys in black hats, it's way more complex than that.

But the story is not good. The characters are one dimensional. The events are too contrived. The whole thing is theatrical rather than cinematic - it's filled with overacting (acting and speaking for the last row rather than the lens), music, a tool of the filmmaker, is barely used, the story explains that war is complex and multi-dimensional, but our characters are simple and one-dimensional, almost clichéd. The cinematography is poor. There are very few (if any) establishing shots, the whole thing is brown, grey, muddy. Indoors, outdoors, it's all the same. There are no interesting camera tricks, moves or anything of modern "film" whatsoever.

The script is not interesting enough to be read as a screenplay, so why make a movie out of this? The lines let the actors down, who did nothing to save this film. With music playing no part and the camera doing the very minimum and nothing more, there's very little value in this film.

The jokes are few and far between, not enough to keep you laughing. It's also not absurd enough to hit that absurdic bone, unlike Apocalypse Now or Pretty Village Pretty Flame.

The production is quite poor, more like Yugoslav films of the 80s than something made in 2008.

The story is about a group of stage actors who go a war zone and discover that war zones are dangerous and terrible places to be. That's the synopsis and there's nothing to spoil because that's the whole film.

I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

The film blurs the line between fiction and reality. The actors perform made-up plays with no connection with the grime reality they confront in the war that just had started. Yet, in a crucial sequence, when one of the actors performs a Greek tragedy for a colonel, she saves the real lives of the whole group of actor. Thus, fiction affects reality. And the other way round, the poet Ljubic seems to be fully occupied by his own fiction. Yet, his words and his imagined ideas of the origin of Serbs contributed to the very real start of the war.

In several scenes it appeared that the soldiers did not understand what was the difference between them and their opponents since the opponents often were their very real neighbours. Thus, the war built on fantasised ideas. Visual blurring was notable in the latter part of the film which took place in a snowy landscape enfolded in fog. These scenes reminds me of passages in Angelopoulos' Eternity and One Day. Angelopoulos also blurs the line between fiction and reality.

Warning: I am commenting this film from a Serbian point of view. I don't know how many people outside the ex Yugoslavia states (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and North Macedonia) know the course of events that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia, but this movie can help a lot. The war in Bosnia was a huge mess and tragedy, but unlike a lot of anti-war films that have been produced in Serbia, this one puts a perspective through the eyes of actors which is really original. It shows all the nonsense of the war, the degradation of arts and the dark side of the human soul in times of war. What makes the movie so powerful are the little details, like when the Serbian soldiers went to watch the theater play just because it was inside and it was cold, the representation of para-military forces and the ''intellectuals'' who contributed to the spread of hate and intolerance, the death of thousands of young men because of absolutely nothing! The director Goran Markovic is a pure genius, his films can touch the deepest corners of your soul and emotions! Personally, I love these kind of films because they teach the younger generations that war is a losing game for every side! Strongly recommend to everyone, it will raise your will for peace, love, understanding and prosperity.