Maratonci trce pocasni krug

Maratonci trce pocasni krug was the first play that 23-year old drama student Dusan Kovacevic wrote. The plot is based on the story about the youngest member of the Topalovic family, which is in the coffin-making business for more than a century. But the youngest member doesn't want to live this kind of life-he wants to marry the mafia boss' daughter and to live the life of an artist, since he is impressed with the movies (this all happens back in the year 1935). But, the mafia boss tries to use him to destroy the opponents - the Topalovic's themselves. This is the shortest possible plot of the best movie ever made. I have seen this movie for over 20 (yes, twenty!!!) times and I think there is not a single person in Serbia that didn't see it. This is the best (and the hardest one to make) kind of movie - it's a comedy without a single moment of triviality. If you were not a habitant of the former Yugoslavia, the names of the actors probably mean nothing to you. But these actors are incredible! They are absolutely hilarious and are the reason for outstanding popularity of the movie. Almost every phrase used in the movie became a part of the usual conversation of the people here in Serbia. I know you probably aren't convinced and still think that The Godfather or Gone With The Wind are the best movies you will see in your lifetime. And I would probably have to agree if there wasn't for that one little movie made 20 years ago in Serbia.

The Serbs say this is the best Serbian film ever made, which I think underestimates it -- it may be the best film anyone made in the 1980s. Released in 1982, when Yugoslavia was a functioning state, rather than international shorthand for murder and genocide, it casts a baleful look backward that becomes, in the light of all the subsequent blood, almost unbearably poignant and prophetic. It would be too much if it weren't constantly, brutally laugh-out-loud funny -- funny even in subtitles, funny as slapstick and deeply classically comic at the same time.

It is set in the 1930s in a backwater small town in Serbia, where the Topalovic family has its funeral home.. Topalovic women "fade away like flowers" immediately after bearing a boy while the men live on and on -- creating the Marathon reference in the title. In an effervescent scene we meet six generations of Topalovic men, each one of whom mercilessly beats and bullies the younger ones. The film centers on the youngest, the tall and none-too-bright Mirko, lover of movies and Cristina, piano player at the town's movie house and daughter of the local gangster Billy Python, who supplies the Topalovic home with used coffins dug up and emptied of their previous occupants.

The action revolves around three events: the death of the very oldest Topalovic, the desire of Mirko's imbecilic, cowardly and conniving father Lucky to break up the Mirko-Cristina affair and -- and this is resoundingly delicious -- the arrival of sound film in the town, putting Cristina out of a job.

The writer, Dusan Kovacevic adapted the script from his own play, and director Slobodan Sijan gets an amazingly good ensemble cast of actors to run the machinery in high gear, flat out. It starts dark and gets darker with crematorium jokes ("the wave of the future"), vintage silent Yugoslav film commercials and clips, and slides, laughing more and more wildly, into violence that flies out of control The tie to what happened to Serbia only a few years later spins the movie up another level. That the tie is not accidental is underlined by the opening sequence -- newsreel footage of the assassination in France of the King of Serbia in the early 20s. The wonderful musical theme, raucous and melancholy at the same time is by Zoran Simjanovic. You don't know me, but do yourself a favor and see this one.

This movie was my first movie. I have one anecdote about this movie. As a child it wasn't allow me to see whole movie, ( my parents says that is because of ticklish scene where two people make love ). I was mad, really mad, I had to leave the room behind the scene, and after that father call me to watch the rest of the movie. But I didn't watch the movie, I was only thinking what was it, what was it...( they never told me what was it, I find out myself ). The movie is classic, and it is appropriate to say that this movie is the best Serbian movie ever made. I think that most of the people in Serbia can agree with me. "Laki is a little bit nervous" was phrase of Billy Piton, and I think that everybody knows that phrase like they was born with those few words.

This movie is for watching all the time. Can not be boring. Every time when I watch movie,I see some new expression, and again and again... Zoran Radmilovic is dead but his spirit is still alive here in my heart, and in hearts every man and woman who loved this movie and the other performances of Zoran Radmilovic.

It is a pity that in spite of it's greatness, the movie is very sensitive to translation ... of language and socio-political environment.

In the magic of the Yugoslav eighties, this film was like something you will never have seen before. The sense of humor those guys had is incredible, comparable only to greatness like Mark Twain, Jaroslav Hasek, Monty Python, in their best years.

Please do also see "Ko to tamo peva" (from two years earlier, same scriptwriter&director).

And remember, if at first you don't succeed.. do yourself a big favor and watch the movie again. Then if you still don't like it, do yourself a bigger favor still and go see 'Airplane II'(also same script,writer&director..) and forget about Serbian comedy.

10/10

Few Serbian films stand up to the standards expected from the Western cinema, but this one cannot be overpraised: everything that's already been said here is true, and then some! A masterpiece in the purest sense of the word.

If re-watchability of a film is one of its major qualities, than this film beats any other that I know of: you can watch it dozens and dozens of time without ever getting bored - it's so funny& profound at the same time.

If you're a Serb, than you certainly already know this film by heart: if you are not, and are intrigued by this praise= by all means try to find it. I hope there is a good translation of its dialogue somewhere, because a lot depends on a quality rendition of the nuances of the actors' words.