Au feu!

This is a good movie.

It shows many aspects of life in the aftermath of Bosnian war in one small village on the border of Bosnian and Serbian entity. Border represents a place where people will come together eventually.

Movie starts with a land mine explosion which maim young woman. Her father will take her to Germany where they were living during the war. He will say: Bosnia will never see me again.

For those who stay there life goes on.

There is mafia business going on which involves human trafficking, prostitution and black market with some police forces involved. Everyday life taken to extremes in the aftermath of war. City coming to normality (if ever, but life will find its ways and definitively an attempt has to be made). Supposed coming of American president to the village serves as backbone around all the life stories circles.

Real central story is chief policeman Zaim (went insane after his soon died in Serbia) search for his soon. He has contacts with ghost of his soon. These are beautifully shown moments of the tortured soul looking for peace. He will find peace in suicidal explosion which burns his whole house and kills him. Hence the name of the film Fire's burning. Acoompanying music is House of the Rising Soon. His younger son receives condolence from his fire-fighters colleagues - Serbs and Bosnian. At the end of movie, younger son tells to ghosts of his brother and father that they should leave him alone for a while.

All parts of the movie are crafted excellently with subtle details.

This bittersweet comedy is set in a tiny, rustic village where Serbs and Muslims still carry memories of war, where arms caches continue to be uncovered and an uneasy peace reigns.

The town has a mayor, but a gangster and a cop really rule the roost. Cocky, lank-haired operator Velija owns the local brothel - controlling imported girls by confiscating their passports - and illegally runs Kurdish and Chinese people into Croatia for a tidy profit. The local chief of police provides Velija's business with protection in return for a healthy cut. International inspectors are trying to re-educate - and foster harmony among - the local fire brigade of Serbs and Muslims; things work after a fashion, but hatreds run deep - returning Serbs are shunned and verbal abuse is commonplace.

Everything changes, though, with the announcement that Bill Clinton will be visiting their village in the next few days. Crime has to be swept under the carpet and a false, but clean, facade must be erected.

With its wonderful mix of gently farcical elements reminiscent of so many great Yugoslav films of previous eras (Milos Forman's The Firemen's Ball also comes to mind), Zalica's portrait of post-war Bosnia is loving, but brutally honest. His ironic eye poignantly registers tragedy all around - most notably in the moving portrait of the former police chief, Zaim, who mourns the adult son he lost in the war. When Zaim digs his gun out of the garden and sets off to settle scores on the eve of the President's visit, drama is imminent.

Fuse is a remarkable work about a catastrophic legacy, told with humour and an unerring sense of the irrational, very real tragedy of the Bosnian war.

When I looked at the vote I could not believe it scored a 6.9. I'm happy to see that many voters gave this film a straight 10, which I concur with wholeheartedly. Surely the 1's and 2's are not about the film, possibly politically motivated. The film has a lot to tell, and does so in a very intelligent way. These are real people, the thin veneer of magic realism adds to the atmosphere and reminds us of how absurd life often is. The film shows us the aftermath of an ethnic conflict, yet irony beats tragedy, game, set and match in this film. Superb acting, fast paced, good montage. History tends to paint big events in black and white, yet with this film the viewer realizes again that on a human scale life if full of nuances.

I don't normally recommend films here in IMDB, but this one is a 4-star endeavor from a relatively new filmmaker from Bosnia. The USA title is FUSE so keep your eye out for it if it gets distributed here. If you liked the Oscar-winning Bosnian film "No Man's Land" then this film should be right up your alley. In this story, instead of the Serbs and Bosnians fighting they are forced to join together to welcome the arrival of an American President to their area. Excellent cast and very good blend of humor and poignancy. I really can't recommend this film highly enough and I wonder why no USA distributors have glommed onto it (somebody's asleep at the wheel). It will be screened in New York City for the New Director's festival (courtesy of MOMA and LCFS) in the next couple weeks...if you're in the neighborhood this is BEST BET if there ever was one!

On one level, I find Pjer Zalica's "Gori vatra" (called "Fuse" in English) interesting because it shows us a culture that we rarely get to see. But beyond that, I like it's focus on people's lives and associations. The movie portrays a small town in Bosnia. The town has seen its share of problems, and tensions persist between the Bosnians and Serbs. That's when they hear that Bill Clinton will be visiting. Not only does everyone do their darnedest to fix up the town, but a diplomat comes to try and make peace between the Bosnians and Serbs, and some of the characters realize the flaws in their relationships with each other and the come to understand the mistakes that they've made in their lives. All the while, the local children are learning The Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" to sing to Clinton. But a surprise lies in wait.

So is the main focus on the results of the 1990s civil war in the Balkans, or on another aspect? Hard to say exactly. But I will say that I admired the movie, as a look at how recent history has affected the people in the region, and as a look at how sudden events throw people's lives into flux. Worth seeing.