Batalha dos Zumbis

I went to see it in the cinema with my friend. Croatian movies (especially comedies) tend to be underwhelming. Usually they're not funny at all and always have the same theme - Serbo-Croatian relationships after the Yugoslavian war. Our expectations were extremely low. But we were in for a surprise. The movie takes place 7 years after Croatia's gone bankrupt. The population fell under 3 million, most of it being homeless on the street. It is heavily segregated, for a small part of it is very rich, including our main protagonist (Hrvoje Mikic). The biggest star is Hrvojka Horvat (Hristina Popovic), making bad, although patriotic, action movies. She's an obvious parody of Wonder Woman with a dash of M. P. Thompson. We soon find out that a mysterious disease turns people into zombies. And so our hero joins a group of survivors, including a stereotypic, homophobic Ustasha-sympathizer called Max (Dado Cosic), trying to find a cure. Along the way they find out that only Serbians are imune to the disease. The rest is up to you to find out. As mentioned before, most Croatian movies weren't able to let go of the theme of Serbo-Croatian post-war relationships. This movie does... Well, kind of. "Posljednji Srbin u Hrvatskoj" choses nationalism in Ex-Yugoslavia in general as it's main topic rather than being specific. It makes fun of everyone: Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, and Slovenians. It points its finger to the future, criticising current problems, such as emigration, privatisation, and the rise of extreme right-wing policies and nationalism, rather than to the past like many other movies. The zombies serve as a metaphor for ideologies that should be dead, but are still pretty much alive, which is especially evident in the later parts of the movie. Along with clever criticism, the movie also makes sure to never take itself too seriously. This is one of the few Croatian comedies I found to be genuinely funny, and me and my friend were laughing constantly. There wasn't even an attempt at a serious scene explaining the main message, and the movie is always fast-paced. Every character is a stereotype, but that fits well with the overall over-the-top tone of the movie. It can be best descriped as an Croatian twist on the zombie-comedy "Zombieland". As stated, most people have really low expectations as far as Croatian cinematography goes. I genuinely thought that critics were bribed to write all the good reviews. But I was obviously wrong. And I'm glad I was.

P.S. I swear to God I was not bribed to write this review. :)

It is a fun movie, parody of several genres. It is a successful political parody of Croatian obsessive idea of Serbs as filthy and dangerous but fascinating Other. Also, it is a successful parody of all small nations' myths of national pride and heroes. There are some very particular parodies of certain Croatian politicians and geopolitical relations. In this respect, it is actually a better movie than it looks like right on the first sight.

There is also unfortunately still a certain problem with the movie: it is very intelligent for someone who knows ex-Yugoslavia politics and history, but it probably looks non-sensical to people who are not familiar to that. In its desire to be a comical for ex-Yugoslav audience, it has a little bit too many cheap jokes and action movies stereotypes made for Balkan market . It perhaps prevents it from being a quality European level movie. Still, having the "virus" as a centre of its theme, probably will give this movie more attention in the future, since it also resonates well with the world pandemic situation, so it might work for the film.

The cast is also very good, at least three main roles are placed in the hands of three quality regional actors, and the film deserves praise in that sense. The minus is, however, the appearance of some iconic pop-culture figures in minimal roles, again, it works just as a low-level jokes of recognition, and not really as some serious reference to anything of significance in the movie.

OK, I guess this is the best Zombie parody I've seen since Shaun of the Dead :) I guess today, in the world of overly sensitive politically correct activists for animal rights, regarthless of which of the 7 unnatural genders they are, this movie would be too much to watch. It's typical Balkan humor, with intentionally cheezy overacting and cartoonish characters set into the cartoonish world of a zombie apocalypse so many people are taking seriously for no apperant reason. If you like zombie movies, high budget action, or actors making you believe the silver screen is more real than reality - this is not the movie for you. However, if you like a good laugh and are not taking yourself (or life, or world) too seriously - enjoy!

The picture of the people who were sometimes ago a members of YU and now live in a separated small and irrelevant countries for a global leaders, and still are driven by the influence of their eternal problems. In some moments it looks like a British movie "Shaun of the Dead" and in one scene reminds us on exYugoslavian "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame", when we hear the song of the old Yugoslavian band "Indexi", She threw everything down the river(Bacila je sve niz rijeku). Anyway, it gives us a good laugh.

This movie was already in cinemas half a year ago and i had a hard time to find it somewhere to have a look at, luckily zagrebs "luda kuca" was showing it on a saturday evening for one-time only and so i went to watch it.

Using the backdrop of a zombie-apocalypse the movie is mocking everything that relates to the current state of the regions of the former yugoslavia and its relations to each other andit does it good enough to be actually funny which seems not to be a given in most croatians comedy-movies, at the same time thats the biggest problem of the movie, foreigners wont relate to it because these are mostly inside-jokes.

Kresimir Mikic is awesome and has become one of my favourite croatian actors, i really wished croatian cinema would make movies that doesnt target only domestic audiences, because it certainly has enough good actors but lacks the screenwriters for it.

So if you are from the balkans and like domestic comedies this one is worth a watch compared to what else croatian cinema has to offer, foreigners should take a pass and rather watch "Shaun of the Dead" or "Zombieland" which this movie doesnt come close.