Noticias

A moderately involving political fable and rare Croatian comedy, "Marsal" (aka "Marshal Tito's Spirit") is the country's entry for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. It's a long shot at best for a nomination and has no domestic commercial future beyond film fest and ethnic cineaste engagements. The film was showcased recently in the American Cinematheque series "Wednesdays in Croatia".

The second feature-length project from director Vinko Bresan ("How the War Started on My Island"), "Marsal" opened in Zagreb in December 1999 and was a boxoffice success. It was greeted as a reconciliation-themed comedy with a remarkable timeliness. Bresan collaborates again on the provocative and irreverent screenplay with his playwright father, Ivo.

Considered so touchy a film when it premiered in Croatia that television advertising for it was censored, "Marsal" is set on a small unnamed island so isolated that a "red" revival occurs when superstitious locals come to believe the ghost of Yugoslavia's former dictator is walking among them. In fact, it's a mental patient bearing an uncanny resemblance to Josip Broz (Marshal Tito), who died in 1980, but many of the island's aging communists take the opportunity to seize power.

Led by cynical zealot Marinko (Ilija Ivezi), the old World War II partisan fighters go one step further than the mayor (Ivo Gregurevic), who has dreams of opening a Tito-themed tourist attraction. An investigating policeman from the mainland, Stipan (Drazen Kuhn), is a local boy who has the most success with attracting the fetching daughter (Linda Begonja) of the bewildered Tito impersonator.

Evenhanded in its skewering of Croatian social strata and lampooning of generational bad habits but hardly incendiary or particularly urgent for non-Europeans, "Marsal" employs communist symbols and traditions for gags, while the humor varies widely from fart jokes to screwball comedy. The actors are more memorable than the material, but "Marsal", like mild medicine, plays out more rewardingly the less one complains about the experience.

MARSAL

Interfilm

Director: Vinko Bresan

Screenwriters: Ivo Bresan, Vinko Bresan

Producers: Ljubo Siki, Ivan Maloa

Director of photography: Zivko Zalar

Production designer: Mario Ivezi

Editor: Sandra Botica Bresan

Costume designer: Vesna Plese

Music: Mate Matesi

Color/stereo

Cast:

Stipan: Drazen Kuhn

Slavica: Linda Begonja

Marinko: Ilija Ivezi

Luka: Ivo Gregurevic

Jakov: Boris Buzancic

Running time -- 91 minutes

No MPAA rating...

A moderately involving political fable and rare Croatian comedy, "Marsal" (aka "Marshal Tito's Spirit") is the country's entry for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. It's a long shot at best for a nomination and has no domestic commercial future beyond film fest and ethnic cineaste engagements. The film was showcased recently in the American Cinematheque series "Wednesdays in Croatia".

The second feature-length project from director Vinko Bresan ("How the War Started on My Island"), "Marsal" opened in Zagreb in December 1999 and was a boxoffice success. It was greeted as a reconciliation-themed comedy with a remarkable timeliness. Bresan collaborates again on the provocative and irreverent screenplay with his playwright father, Ivo.

Considered so touchy a film when it premiered in Croatia that television advertising for it was censored, "Marsal" is set on a small unnamed island so isolated that a "red" revival occurs when superstitious locals come to believe the ghost of Yugoslavia's former dictator is walking among them. In fact, it's a mental patient bearing an uncanny resemblance to Josip Broz (Marshal Tito), who died in 1980, but many of the island's aging communists take the opportunity to seize power.

Led by cynical zealot Marinko (Ilija Ivezi), the old World War II partisan fighters go one step further than the mayor (Ivo Gregurevic), who has dreams of opening a Tito-themed tourist attraction. An investigating policeman from the mainland, Stipan (Drazen Kuhn), is a local boy who has the most success with attracting the fetching daughter (Linda Begonja) of the bewildered Tito impersonator.

Evenhanded in its skewering of Croatian social strata and lampooning of generational bad habits but hardly incendiary or particularly urgent for non-Europeans, "Marsal" employs communist symbols and traditions for gags, while the humor varies widely from fart jokes to screwball comedy. The actors are more memorable than the material, but "Marsal", like mild medicine, plays out more rewardingly the less one complains about the experience.

MARSAL

Interfilm

Director: Vinko Bresan

Screenwriters: Ivo Bresan, Vinko Bresan

Producers: Ljubo Siki, Ivan Maloa

Director of photography: Zivko Zalar

Production designer: Mario Ivezi

Editor: Sandra Botica Bresan

Costume designer: Vesna Plese

Music: Mate Matesi

Color/stereo

Cast:

Stipan: Drazen Kuhn

Slavica: Linda Begonja

Marinko: Ilija Ivezi

Luka: Ivo Gregurevic

Jakov: Boris Buzancic

Running time -- 91 minutes

No MPAA rating...

Comedy Comes to Croatia / 'Singing' shines in best of anti-war tradition

One wouldn't expect a film from Croatia to deliver a rollicking good time, but that's exactly what Krsto Papic's black comedy does. "When the Dead Start Singing" is a throwback to the kind of absurdist farce in which Eastern European cinema used to specialize, and, despite some obviousness here and there, it's great fun.

Showcased recently in competition at the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, where it tied for the jury prize for best film, it could well be a sleeper success on the art house circuit for an adventurous distributor.

The film centers on two Croatian emigrants in Germany seeking to return to their homeland. One hatches a scheme to fake his death and return to Croatia in a coffin, ensuring comfortable death benefits and a pension for his family. Unfortunately, he's being pursued by a mafia figure who wants to kill him and sell his organs to a dying mobster.

The other, who emigrated for political reasons, is still being hunted by a zealous member of the secret police looking to end his career with a bang. A wild series of complications ensues, particularly when the men finally manage to return home, only to find themselves amid the civil war.

Some of the film's humor is predictable -- the supposedly deceased character says "over my dead body" far too many times -- but "Dead Start Singing" is a beautifully constructed black comedy filled with riotous visual and verbal humor in the best anti-war tradition. Director Papic keeps things moving at a frenetic enough pace that you never stop to question the wild plotting, yet he allows enough warmth and character development to prevent the film from seeming overly mechanical.

WHEN THE DEAD START SINGING

Jadran Films

Credits: Director: Krsto Papic; Screenwriters: Mate Matisic, Krsto Papic; Producer: Ljubo Sikic; Director of photography: Vjekoslav Vrookjak; Editor: Robert Lisjak; Music: Zrinko Tutic. Cast: Ivo Gregurevic, Ivica Vidovic, Mirjana Majurec, Kesnija Pajic, Jatija Prskalo. No MPAA rating. Color/stereo. Running time -- 104 minutes.