Ustav Republike Hrvatske

The Croatian film Ustav Republike Hrvatske (Constitution of the Republic of Croatia) was shown in the U.S. with the title The Constitution (2016). It was co-written and directed by Rajko Grlic.

The movie is about the actions--and interactions--of four Croatians. The situation is complicated for many reasons. One reason is class differences. Vjeko Kralj (Nebojsa Glogovac) is an upper class professor. He lives with his bedridden father Hrvoje Kralj (Bozidar Smiljanic), who was a leading Fascist general.

A working-class couple live in the same apartment building. Maja and Ante Samardzic (Ksenija Marinkovic and Dejan Acimovic) are a nurse and a police officer, respectively.

The situation is also complicated by ethnicity. Maja and Ante are from Serbia. Even though Ante fought for Croatia against the Serbs, the ethnic Croatians dislike them on the basis of their origins. (To this day, many Serbs hate Croatians and many Croatians hate Serbs. You can read about it in Wikipedia.)

Fate throws the four people closer together. Vieko is gay, and a cross-dresser. He is the victim of homophobic violence, and enters a hospital where Maja is a nurse. When he gets home, he can't care for himself, let alone his father. Maja becomes their caretaker. In return, Vieko will tutor Ante on the Croatian Constitution. Every police officer has to be tested on the Constitution, and Ante has dyslexia, so he's having trouble.

How this all works out makes for a fascinating film. It's one of those movies that appear to be going nowhere, when suddenly things begin to click.

We saw this film at Rochester's excellent Little Theatre. It was screened as part of the great ImageOut LGBT Film Festival. This was the movie's New York State premiere. (It's always important when a movie is shown first in Rochester than in New York City.) It will work well on the small screen. Seek it out and watch it!

Nebojsa Glogovac was the greatest serbian theatre amd movie actor of the recent times. Extremely popular in the former Jugoslavia and adoredin Serbia. That was his last film before he died off lung cancer aged 47. In my opinion, his performance in this film is one of the best ever done in the history of cinema. Just watch it to get assured I am telling the truth.

Another sad reminder of the situation in Croatian cinema.

This film should be a satire, but it is devoid of any humor and any balance of story. The film is boring and banal, and any attempt at some kind of humor is so pathetic that it's just sad. Croatian films cannot escape politics, and neither can this one. This attempt at satire was therefore doomed at the very beginning.

The film is pretentious and boring and it is a real torture to watch this film to the end. When a film is so pretentious, it is impossible to take it seriously and it simply causes a complete counter-effect. The stereotypes the film is about are so banal, the film is a complete cliché and a parody of itself. Really sad.

The actors tried as hard as they could, but the film is a total disaster. In the end, it turned out that watching this movie was a complete waste of time.

Know each other is a first step to stop hating each other. Nebojsa RIP... We miss you so much

Extremely boring execution of somewhat interesting plot. Uneven acting performances.