100 minuta slave

The film is about Slava Raskaj (1877-1906), famous deaf-and-dumb Croatian paintress ? Yes ?! Then why give her second billing ? We learn a lot about Bela Cikos-Sesija, modernist painter and her lover, but nothing much from Slava. Sure it tells us that she was in anguish (mental illness), but you don't get to know that much until later in the movie. Totally absurd. I'm sure some of our males mouths dropped when Sanja's Vejnovic's cast was taken off, but shouldn't we be getting back to Slava now ? The music is fairly on track, the cinematography was excellent, but the story is lacking in it's core figure. I came away with a sense of "did I miss something?". Matanic's direction is full of affectation and pose. He was simple unable to understand and feel Slava's drama. Pity cause he ruined the great biographic subject.

The film is excellent in the moments of Bela-Slava relations, but I agree with previous viewer that Slava's character is neglected. The movie should be called '100 minutes of Bela'. My opinion is that director Matanic wanted to put the flashlight on Miki Manojlovic (in the role of Bela), one of the best character actors around. When he got him for the movie, he seized every second of him, so Sanja Vejnovic (Slava) naturally falls behind. Vili Matula is brilliant as always. Some of the cut-off scenes on DVD are better than the scenes in the movie and it's a pity they didn't remain in the film, especially the scene where Bela and Slava break things together. I loved the scenes where director shows the men shoes same on every foot in town, but was it really necessary to explain it later with Bela's voice over which guide us through the film? The movie is not bad at all, but it feels too much like some Corto Maltese's trip to Central Europe so if you're the fan of the comic, you'll enjoy it.

I was really surprised to see this movie since it is so different than any other work of Croatian cinema that I've ever seen. This is not a dull biographical movie which deals with every little detail of Slava Raškaj's life, whose artistic capacity was largely underestimated only because she was a deaf-mute woman not affected by society rules and expectations. The biographical facts are mentioned only to accentuate her rich emotional (inner) life and intellectual & artistic achievements which were far beyond most of other artists of her time. This movie shows how hard it was (and still is) to be an intellectual in Croatia, a country where majority of residents are still bound by their provincial upbringing which hinders their capacity to understand "real art" and distinguish genuine emotion from fake show off.