damir00

I'm watching the "thrilling" climax as I type this.

Listen, folks, this film wasn't meant to be taken seriously, it's meant more as a parody or farce. Just listen to the soundtrack during the "dramatic" moments, it's not even trying to be serious. I'm guessing the cast was struggling to keep from bursting out in laughter during the filming because it really is stuffed full of every imagineable cliche.

Though there are some original lines. "I want to make you haggis." I mean, come on, how can anyone even begin to imagine this was meant seriously. It's like a police drama version of "Showgirls".

Well, without as much skin. ;-)

whichever corner of the balkans is called home, it is all but unuarguable that Kusturica is the region's greatest filmmaker. i have enjoyed all of his films - most especially "Otac na sluzbenom putu" and "Underground" - but none disturbed me quite like this one disturbed me.

the reason is that he portrays a (former) Yugoslavia i do not know, and have never known. both my parents fled the "acceptable face of communism" during the very years this film shows almost nostalgically. they were roughly the same age as the main character, yet their experience of Tito's paradise was completely and utterly apposite to what Kusturica shows on the screen. the world they knew was one of deprivation and disappearances and harassment and they could not get away from it fast enough.

i am not saying either viewpoint is right or wrong. i just find it eye-openingly disturbing that the same place at the same time can be remembered in such radically different ways.

i believe there is a lesson in that for all of us, especially those of us whose roots lie in the balkans.

I saw this when it first came out, in a theatre, and came away

disappointed. I just saw it again on HBO and, to my surprise, I

enjoyed it!

What I noticed this time was the fantasy. More exactly, just how

much of it was fantasy. Hint: think blue. Blue, blue, blue, Nicole

recounting the sailor fantasy in front of a blue window, the blue

windows when the night's adventures begin with a surprise kiss,

right down to Rade wearing blue clothes in the costume shop

when he offered up his daughter as a sexual toy and the blue

gates to the orgy that never actually happened.

I have to admit it, Kubrik was both cleverer and baser than I could

imagine at the time. This is no more - but also no less - about a

man trying to figure out the role of sex in his life.

Upon further reflection, this film is recommended.