Baril de poudre

Goran Paskaljevic outdoes himself with this dark, satiric drama-comedy. What he gives us here is Serbia in a nutshell, a post-war Serbia torn with crime, anger and mistrust. "Who's to blame?" is the central question here and the line is spoken several times throughout the movie, once in a particularly hilarious scene. The bus scene is the one that illustrates the situation Serbia and most of former Yugoslavia are in-chaos. There is no one behind the wheel, so everybody is trying to take control.

There is no way to write about this film without saying something about the cast. It consists of all the finest Serbian and Yugoslav actors (two of them, Trifunovic and Glogovac, are from Herzegovina originally and two are from Macedonia) and it is one of the cases where the entire cast is the protagonist. Particularly fine performances come from Miki Manojlovic, Mirjana Jokovic, Mirjana Karanovic, Voja Brajovic, Aleksandar Bercek, Nebojsa Glogovac and Lazar Ristovski. The storyline is incredibly well built and all stories and characters are equally good.

This is a flawless, high quality tragicomedy which will provide you great entertainment and watching experience, as well as a good insight into the situation of this country. It is a humanistic and poignant film with a message, a cry for help. Balkan-a barrell of gunpowder, a-hole of the world.

This movie impressed me a lot, however the fine details and message of this movie might very easily escape the unwary viewer. I was lucky to watch the movie with a friend from Ex-Yugoslavia who could point out what exactly lied behind every small gesture or circumstantial hints hidden in a single sentence.

The characters in this movie are in a constant dilemma, half self-inflicted, half caused by higher powers. Yugoslavia at that time is isolated - mentally, economically, morally. There is no valve to let of the steam, so the people take on themselves, murdering, plundering, threatening and raping. Almost every character is shown to be not fully guilty, but nevertheless brought down by their own acts of violence. The bus scene especially shows that the Yugoslavian people have forgotten to take their fate in their own hands. A young men is fed up with the system, his wasted life and the apathy of his people in general. The best scene in the movie for me

Tragic-comically ends this scene like the whole movie. The whole plot takes place one day before the Dayton agreement, another twist of fate, that just on this day those people lose their lives for nothing and absolutely nothing.

When you watch this movie you have to realize the deeper message has been made for the Yugoslavian audience to show them the mechanizations of their lives and their own guilt going with it. He tries to hammer this in the minds of the viewers hence the compressed plot and intermingling of scenes. A masterpiece.

There are so few movies out there of this caliber. Though certainly a visceral movie, there is a feeling of connectedness with the characters that (though somewhat negated by the foreign language) makes this more than just an intense viewing. Sure, at the end, I breathed a sigh of relief and let go of the knot in my stomach, but the best part of this movie is its study of human nature on the edge. What makes this movie so awful to watch is not that the characters can be so evil, but that you know that they aren't inherently so. Please go see this movie now.

"Cabaret Balkan" comes at you like fangs on a snapping Doberman with is finely tuned and well crafted display of anger. An apparent cry of despair for the current social, economic, and political state of the Balkans, an open and festering wound on the face of the world, "Cabaret Balkan" actually shows little violence and almost no gore. What is does show is nonstop rage. A "Magnolia-esque" format with numerous characters in unrelated situations in lieu of a homogenous story, "Cabaret Balkan" trades plot for purpose and substance for effect. However, its sheer drama, the power of its performances, and the superb acting by a relatively unknown cast make this film pound-for-pound and dollar-for-dollar more powerful, gripping, and compelling than anything to come out of Hollywood in recent years.

As truth can be defined by the observer, it is also guided by the artist. This film is as close to truth in film as one can get. The state of the Balkans is one which cannot be easily defined, but understood, if you understand its peoples. The truth of this film lies in the reactionary maelstrom that has been the Balkans for a very, very long time. The film ties the lives together of many, equally bizarre characters and events which are tied together artistically by a collage of madness and life on the edge of it. Please do not miss this film, and watch it several times if possible.