Rat uzivo

This is a very good movie, made during the final months of the Milosevic regime. It is critical to the regime, but also represents the feelings of normal people from Belgrade during the NATO bombings. People who don't know anything about the bombings could read something before watching. During this time the Serbs were (still) represented by the "free" media as ruthless savages. This film deals with these issues as well. The story is very original, the idea belonged to Dragan Bjelogrlic, and the script was written by Nikola Pejakovic. If you have watched "Lepa sela lepo gore" - Bjelogrlic there played Milan, and Pejakovic - Halil. In "Rat uzivo" you can see some of the best Serbian actors. 10 points from Bulgaria :)

In spite of difficult working ambient this movie shows big and maximum producers support in making it. I like the story. This movie could expect good distribution worldwide.

I can't believe this terrible film was made by the same people who made Lepa Sela Lepo Gore. Watch that and skip this. The plot is muddled and the characters are mostly two-dimensional stereotypes. I suspect the editor went on vacation halfway through the film because quick, choppy cuts start to appear that only confuse matters rather than elucidate them. The ending doesn't make sense either.

This is predominantly a propaganda film made so Serbs can feel sorry for themselves and vilify America for the NATO bombings of 1999. They do this by perpetuating lies about Serbs being our allies during WWII, claiming the whole world is unjustly against them, and completely ignoring everything said and done by Slobodan Milosevic, like waging war on three neighboring countries. They seem intent on making a political film but only show a few seconds of Milosevic on a TV screen with no sound. A nationalist agenda obviously superseded any consideration of art which was not the case with Lepa Sela.

Regrettably, I recommended this film to a teacher when it played last week at the Seattle International Film Festival. He also cited the bad editing and confusing plot, and I had to apologize for the bad advice. You've been warned.

This film, which was Yugoslavia's nomination for best foreign language film of 2001, starts as an entertaining comedy about the making of an underfunded independent film in Yugoslavia.

Later it turns into more of a drama, but somehow I was left behind at the transition. The acting is probably better than I realized at the time, because the actors were convincingly bad actors in the film within the film, which is likely harder than it looks. Seen at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) on 2/22/2002.

Fascinating look behind the headlines of contemporary Belgrade. Character Harvey, played by Daryl Haney, gives frighteningly funny and dark performance as American ex-pat. Surprisingly high production values all around, capped off by tense script and timely subject matter. Recommended