The film "Tito and Me" was made during one of the most difficult periods in the history of Eastern Europe. Its quirky humor has marked the beginning of the end for the country it celebrates and unmercifully criticizes at the same time.
Making a child the central point of the film is essential for its vision. A child is able to see everything in a way as yet unclouded by the veils that adults often put on truth. And yet, the nation this film depicts often behaves like a big child (in ways that lead to self-ruin instead to self-preservation), and that gives another justification for such a choice of the main star.
The film goes even further to deal with certain philosophical and moral issues that were accepted without question for a great number of years in most countries of Eastern Europe. It puts them to test, a test of an honest and pure spectator of human foibles and peculiarities, and shows us the terrifying results made by an unbiased viewer.
The humor of the film, often bordering on absurd, only serves to heighten the sense of malaise and impending doom that eventually becomes a reality.
The child Zoran (wonderfully played by Dimitrije Vojnov, who is now one of Serbia's leading film critics and film connoisseurs)is taken along the paths of maturity, his thoughts become more and more grown-up in the process, and accordingly, his illusions are shattered one by one.
This film is comic, warm and honest, but also cruel and terrifying in its refusal to compromise. It is a story of a misguided nation and a warning for others who may share the same destiny, but are as yet not aware of it. As such it should be seen.
