Life Is a Miracle
CANNES -- Emir Kusturica's "Life Is a Miracle" comes roaring at you with all the noisy exuberance and crazy frivolity of a Balkan festival. That the movie takes place during a cruel and dirty war underscores the filmmaker's tragicomic view. "Life" is the Serbian writer-director's attempt to put his feelings on film about the conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It's a big, messy movie filled with music and slapstick, but at its heart, it is a love story.
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 9/7/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Life Is a Miracle
CANNES -- Emir Kusturica's "Life Is a Miracle" comes roaring at you with all the noisy exuberance and crazy frivolity of a Balkan festival. That the movie takes place during a cruel and dirty war underscores the filmmaker's tragicomic view. "Life" is the Serbian writer-director's attempt to put his feelings on film about the conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It's a big, messy movie filled with music and slapstick, but at its heart, it is a love story.
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 15/5/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Film review: 'Savior' How to Make a Pitiless Revenge Killer / Put him in Oliver Stone's 'Savior,' about the dehumanization of war
War dehumanizes people. Not exactly a scoop, but in "Savior" it's vividly and graphically presented when an American career soldier goes killer-numb after the murder of his wife and child by terrorists.
Starring Dennis Quaid and billing Nastassja Kinski (she appears in one scene), this Oliver Stone production is a bluntly forged drama that puts a face on the way human beings deal with warfare: They demonize the other side, among other things.
Intelligently conceived, "Savior" should engage decent select-site numbers, while the Lions Gate release should make more of an impact on the foreign circuit, based on its international cast.
In a thought-provoking scenario, Quaid stars as Guy -- he could be any guy, the film seems to posit -- whose loving wife (Kinski) and child are blown to bits at a Parisian bistro. The culprits are fundamentalist terrorists. Guy wastes no time in taking matters into his own hands. He wreaks vengeance on a mosque of praying Arabs, wantonly slaughtering them before his friend and fellow soldier (Stellan Skarsgard) hustles him to safety.
The duo enlist in the anonymity of the French Foreign Legion, learning to become brutal killing machines. Guy, it is obvious, is entrenched in a state of severe antisocial psychosis -- the shock of his family's death has traumatized him, and he's become an unfeeling, automatic weapon himself.
Not surprisingly, he becomes a very efficient executioner, devoid of mercy and utterly capable of the most atrocious actions. His arena is Serbia, but, for all that matters, it could be anywhere in the world where there is a genocidal, ethnic war going on. Guy does not care; he merely shoots everything in his sights.
How a decent and otherwise devoted family man could snap and become a monstrous instrument of sadistic murder is convincingly presented in Robert Orr's smart, psychological scenario.
Under director Peter Antonijevic's steely hand, "Savior" offers supple visuals and a haunting, grainy film score. The performances are strong, including Quaid as the shattered soldier who loses, then redeems, his humanity.
SAVIOR
Lions Gate Films
An Oliver Stone production
A film by Peter Antonijevic
Credits: Producers: Oliver Stone, Janet Yang; Director: Peter Antonijevic; Screenwriter: Robert Orr; Executive producer: Cindy Cowan; Co-producers: Naomi Despres, Joseph Bruggeman; Line producer: Miryana Mijojlic; Associate producers: Molly M. Mayeux, Scott Moore; Director of photography: Ian Wilson; Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Ian Crafford; Music: David Robbins; Casting: Mary Vernieu. Cast: Guy: Dennis Quaid; Maria: Nastassja Kinski; Dominic: Stellan Skarsgard; Vera: Natasa Ninkovic; Goran: Sergej Trifunovic; Vera's brother: Neboisa Glogovac; Woman on Bus: Vesna Trivalic. MPAA rating: R. Color/stereo. Running time -- 105 minutes.
Starring Dennis Quaid and billing Nastassja Kinski (she appears in one scene), this Oliver Stone production is a bluntly forged drama that puts a face on the way human beings deal with warfare: They demonize the other side, among other things.
Intelligently conceived, "Savior" should engage decent select-site numbers, while the Lions Gate release should make more of an impact on the foreign circuit, based on its international cast.
In a thought-provoking scenario, Quaid stars as Guy -- he could be any guy, the film seems to posit -- whose loving wife (Kinski) and child are blown to bits at a Parisian bistro. The culprits are fundamentalist terrorists. Guy wastes no time in taking matters into his own hands. He wreaks vengeance on a mosque of praying Arabs, wantonly slaughtering them before his friend and fellow soldier (Stellan Skarsgard) hustles him to safety.
The duo enlist in the anonymity of the French Foreign Legion, learning to become brutal killing machines. Guy, it is obvious, is entrenched in a state of severe antisocial psychosis -- the shock of his family's death has traumatized him, and he's become an unfeeling, automatic weapon himself.
Not surprisingly, he becomes a very efficient executioner, devoid of mercy and utterly capable of the most atrocious actions. His arena is Serbia, but, for all that matters, it could be anywhere in the world where there is a genocidal, ethnic war going on. Guy does not care; he merely shoots everything in his sights.
How a decent and otherwise devoted family man could snap and become a monstrous instrument of sadistic murder is convincingly presented in Robert Orr's smart, psychological scenario.
Under director Peter Antonijevic's steely hand, "Savior" offers supple visuals and a haunting, grainy film score. The performances are strong, including Quaid as the shattered soldier who loses, then redeems, his humanity.
SAVIOR
Lions Gate Films
An Oliver Stone production
A film by Peter Antonijevic
Credits: Producers: Oliver Stone, Janet Yang; Director: Peter Antonijevic; Screenwriter: Robert Orr; Executive producer: Cindy Cowan; Co-producers: Naomi Despres, Joseph Bruggeman; Line producer: Miryana Mijojlic; Associate producers: Molly M. Mayeux, Scott Moore; Director of photography: Ian Wilson; Editors: Gabriella Cristiani, Ian Crafford; Music: David Robbins; Casting: Mary Vernieu. Cast: Guy: Dennis Quaid; Maria: Nastassja Kinski; Dominic: Stellan Skarsgard; Vera: Natasa Ninkovic; Goran: Sergej Trifunovic; Vera's brother: Neboisa Glogovac; Woman on Bus: Vesna Trivalic. MPAA rating: R. Color/stereo. Running time -- 105 minutes.
- 17/11/1998
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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