Mrtav 'ladan

I am Bulgarian and I find this Balkans humor quite accurate and funny, obviously because I've grown up with it.

Here the comedy may be shown in a slightly dark way, which audience have to understand, but the film, generally, has a great theme and story.

MRTAV ` LADAN is the directing debut of Milorad Milinkovic Debeli, famous music clip and theatre director who is very well known for his New Wave antics in Serbian rock`n`roll. This time round he finally debuts on the big screen in Serbian adaptation of Hitchcock`s TROBLE WITH HARRY and the WEEKEND AT BERNIE`S franchise. Debeli is talented and old enough to keep overwhelming actors at bay even though most of the laughs are sniffed out of curses. And foul mouth isn`t a reliable source of humor. Plotting is also a wee bit convulted since there are too many obstacles for main characters and not too many ways to solve these situations. This is why audience is forced to wait for the miscellaneous hijinks for the plot to move forward. Relying on luck makes characters look passive. Some situations are poorly staged but who are we to whine when MRTAV `LADAN is one of the rare Serbian movies shot on film stock, even though it`s 16mm. As it is, it is mildly enjoyable. One of the finest films in the season when we had only 3 barely watchable Serbian films. Yeah, right.

That's about the only scene that made me smile, which is a serious problem when you take into account that it is a comedy. Milorad Milinkovic's directorial debut is a comedy of confusion, but while the idea is good, it worked out badly. It relies more on vulgarity in the expression and behavior of the characters, as well as our sympathy for well-known actors, than on the qualities of the story itself, which is rather lazily written. The movie is not boring, but it is not particularly funny either, and apart from the idea and strong cast, I have nothing to praise and recommend.

6/10

Mrtav Hladan (Stiff Dead)----Stiff Cold---

After a less then stellar title opening, this movie picks up right away and takes you on a journey you will forget but at the same time will enjoy tremendously. This movie's closest relative is Weekend at Bernie's, but this Serbian movie takes the concept a few notches higher and is a lot funnier. The film has a pretty lousy English translation, but then again a lot of the Serbian slang can't be translated into English.

The basic plot revolves around a drug dealer Limini (Tin man) who is said to have no heart, and two men Lemi and Kiza who are trying to transport their dead grandfather for burial, until their car breaks down and they end up struggling to get him home onboard a train. This is when these two plots intersect and all hell breaks lose. You won't laugh so hard at the movies in a long time, especially if you speak Serbian, Croatian or anything similar. There are few scenes that will make you cringe but then again a few movies are without those.

Since I don't want to spoil the plot any further all I can say is bring an extra diaper and enjoy.