Crnci

This psychological drama set during the Croatian War for Independence depicts a squadron of Croatian soldiers designated for special tasks. It is revered by critics as the first Croatian movie that depicts some of the brutal aspects of the war without ideological embellishment. Along with ˝Paviljon 22˝, a documentary on illegal torture of Serbian civilians, this movie has helped raise awareness of the more darker side of the Croatian involvement in this conflict.

Although the plot evolves slowly and without much conversation between the characters, film directors Zvonimir Juric and Goran Devic keep the viewer in suspense while they experience the turmoil inside the soldiers played by some of Croatia's best actors.

The movie won awards on a number of film festivals including three prizes on Arena Film Festival 2009 in Pula, Croatia, the Belgrade Auteur Film Festival, Belgrade 2009, Cottbus International Film Festival, Cottbus 2009, Ljubljana International Film Festival, Ljubljana 2009 and Crossing Europe FF, Linz 2010.

First of all, I have to say that I've had opportunity to see this movie twice, first at Pula Film Festival and secondly at Sarajevo Film Festival. Something is interesting in this sick movie, because if you let it - it can very easily pull your mind into world of war & political issues, when all rules you knew simply doesn't work anymore ... But if you expect to be amused for 90 minutes - be sure that you'll be pretty disappointed ... I mean, if you don't expect classic movie narration and if you are aware that "Crnci" is difficult-to-see-movie previously of screening, it might be a winner for you ... But, sincerely ... Not for me ... Not at all ..

The movie was heavily promoted over different channels in the Ljubljana film festival 2009, so the tickets were sold out long before screening, hence there was high expectations involved for that movie. Sadly many were not reached. Since the movie begins on the end and then travels back in time for one day to give as an explanation of what happened, the suspense or anticipations is probably deliberately, removed to give more space to character build up. Now that the war is "over", every member of the special unit has to wage the war with inner daemons of guilt of what they were doing during the war and the mistakes they made, that got them to these situation. The idea was good, but we all saw it many times before. The pragmatic general politician persuading the on-the-field general to stop the "dirty" operations since there is ceasefire, failed marriage, the junkie realizing that dope will not wash away the guilt, the rookie with his secret, saddened brother, the they-were-cold hearted-bustards-as-well tape. The movie should be cathartic and we should wash our since thru the characters, but it leaves us unaffected and we understand what happened even before the flash back in time starts explaining the "complexity" of their problem. Everybody suffers in war, you loose your humanity and you can't cry it back on the end. Good people die bad people die guilty people die innocent die and on the end there is cease-fire but the real peace comes when all involved are dead and the emblems of the squads are just one of the collectibles items non different then football badges.