Guca!

What a light-hearted and sweet (albeit somewhat predictable) film. I am glad to see another film in which the Romany language is heard, and a first film where the Gucha Trumpet Festival is highlighted. The cinematography and editing of this movie are outstanding - the hills and orchards of the region are a sumptuous backdrop to a very sweet, and encouraging, story. And the music - unforgettable! I have the soundtrack already, thanks to friends in Belgrade. Y'know, it's best not to overthink things sometimes.... Sometimes ya gotta just sit back and enjoy a feast for the eyes, ears, and heart. It's a contender for TIFF 2007... hope it makes the programme!

This is the first movie that seriously involves Gucha into plot. Guca, a small town in western Serbia, is well known for its folk trumpet festival. Storyline guide us through forbidden love of Gypsy boy, trumpet player, and Serbian girl, daughter of famous trumpet player. The bet is made: if the boy "overplay" girl's father oh Gucha festival, he take the girl to be his wife. From that point on, we are faced with a way of a boy to win Gucha festival. This is nice, simple love story, placed behind the scenes of big festival. It will joy up the viewer, without big intentions. Watching it, the one can feel cultural difference between Serbian and Gypsy folks and to see one of the biggest folk festivals in Serbia.

The Romeo and Juliet story of forbidden love gets a fresh variant in this musical film set in the Balkans of our times. Julijana is the daughter of a Serbian trumpet player, the best of his kind, while Romeo is a gypsy and an aspiring musician by himself. Their love is preempted by the racial barriers, which only an apparently impossible win the traditional trumpet festival at Gucha could possibly make true. The story is quite expected, and the charm of the movie resides in the direct and sincere approach, including the acting of the two main protagonists and a lot of amateur actors around giving an air of authenticity, the luminous and somehow idyllic cinematography and especially the music which dominated and embraces the whole film. Without being too original the film is worth a look and especially an audition.

This was one of the delightful movies that deals with the worst racism you can find on Earth... no, it's not towards the African Americans - even if they are the loudest - but towards Roma people who are still experiencing the same like 100 years before but with their freedoms reduced to nothing! When I was a kid, Roma people were roaming Europe freely, no documents, no passports, no registrations for their horse carriages or carts... they have nothing left, except music... and racism, from before.

Romeo and Juliette the Roma way is done the best possible way, with their music! Yes, the Balkan music became their music because they enriched everyone else they were nearby and made things better, even when society claims the opposite. People with a soul, a soul that sings and understands the shortness of this life, the insignificance of living without love... and they live with full lungs, breathing and exhaling with the rhythm of their heartbeats. Trumpet fights instead of those with weapons are refreshing...

Romeo, Romeo... why are you Roma? - asks the hero knowing the reality and fights because he believes in something most of us forgot - the real love always wins! Music is emotional and captivating, especially for people who listen and enjoy the sound of the trumpet, and there is a reason behind it as the young Roma man in love explains: "When you blow through the pipe on the other side you come out as an emotion that you carry inside you, which becomes music. My real father used to say: When the breath dies, the tone is lost."

The film feels real as it could be... this is about a world where parents forget that their riches are not golden trumpets polished with a "magic cloth" but their own flash and blood... I will say just one more thing: This is my favourite Romeo and Juliette adaptation... for a reason! This is NOT a masterpiece of a cinematography but it is the best film I've seen in the genre of combining romantic comedy and classical adaptation! So, try, maybe you like it, too!