OK, so two provisos here. 1) These are opinions pretty much fresh from seeing the film, and thus knowing me apt to change significantly following time to ruminate. 2) It' late, and I'll spell check it all the morning. I'm tired as hell right now. 3) This review will definitely end up being really unsatisfying to me because it simply could never convey just the sheer level of ground that this film covers, or how hilarious it is, or how tragic, or how perfectly its surrealist aspects are executed. 4) This may well come across as something of a hyperbolic splurge, but I really liked the film OK? With those things in mind:
"Marco, you lie so beautifully!"
I have this ongoing project with my cousin where we introduce each other to films that are essential to our very being, and the latest that she passed on may well be a film that will forever remain one of my all time favourites. At the very least, I feel it will stand as one of those films by which I can divide my experience as a cinema lover (hell, maybe as a person) into "before I saw Underground" and "after I saw Underground". To explain exactly why is extremely difficult without spoiling too much of the film, especially because the film takes a radically different turn around 1 hour in that I want to preserve as much as possible. In fact, I would generally say that this is very much a film that benefits from knowing as little going in as is possible, so if you're willing to just take a recommendation then just stop reading now and
go and watch it immediately! For those of you who need a little bit more convincing, I'll try, although seriously, avoid reading too much else about it.
The film is, in the simplest terms, the blackly comic story of two best friends, Marko and Blacky (and to an extent one of their brothers, Ivan), and the joint object of their affections, Natalija, over the course of Yugoslavia's history from the beginning of WWII up until the 1992 Yugoslav wars. However, to describe at as such seems to do the film a great injustice. For one, this is a film which, at nearly 3 hours in length (from a 5 and a half hours director's cut!), is epically, ebulliently,
brawlingly varied in terms of focus, tone, and anything else that you can easily pin down in a review. This is a film that opens with a horse drawn carriage rocketing across the Yugoslavian countryside followed by a blaring Baltic carnival band (who will accompany much of the films action), and then within about 10 minutes covers equal amounts of comedy and tragedy as we are shown tragic images animal corpses left by a bombing run, a heated domestic dispute, a man masturbating as his town explodes around him, another man ripping through an exposed electric wire with his teeth, proclamations of vengeance, and more that I'm sure I've forgotten already.
Over the course of it's running time, it follows its characters through numerous moments of beauty, horror and insanity as they drink heavily, fight wars, love, brawl, drink more, kidnap brides, resist torture, deal arms, drink, mourn, dance, contemplate suicide, and erm... drink more, all while flitting constantly and seamlessly between totally off the wall surrealist farce that recalls early Junet and sections of surprising lucidity and harsh brutality, all while tying it into a grand and coherent narrative statement on Yugoslavia's troubled history and eventual demise.
What struck me most about the film is that it continually pulls off this high wire act where, seemingly for the sheer love of filmmaking as much as anything else, it will trust itself off into these complete plot or stylistic diversions that give you serious cause to wonder how they're going to artfully resolve the tonal conflict, and then will go tearing back into a new direction so natural, so perfect, that you wonder how you ever doubted if it could be any other way. The way it pulls this off again and again with each new direction was so impressive that at several points I literally found myself laughing out loud, and even quietly applauding in my room, not at anything obviously funny (although this is an
immensely funny film), but at the sheer cinematic
audacity of it all. As a result, what could easily from the above description have been an interesting but incoherent mess ends up as a shockingly direct and incisive comment on the human condition and a very difficult period in European history.
At this point, it may seem that I'm just spewing praise without discussing any of the films specifics, this is because I earnestly want to preserve as much of it for the viewer as is possible. What I will say is that, on the political front, an extraordinary and unique part of Kusturica's genius here is that he has made what is effectively a searingly
angry film about his country's history, complete with extremely heavy moments and a lot of shocking death, bloodshed and horror, that is still, fundamentally, a deeply
joyous film, on a level of basic humanism. He weaves together these two elements of rage at the past and love for his people so effectively that they effectively become the same emotion, a massive punchdrunk cinematic bellow of love, nostalgia, betrayal, melancholy, laughter and anger, with each near inseparable from the other. The whole thing quickly takes on the feeling of truths so awful that the only response is laughter, and in that intersection it finds something quite profound to convey.
I would however freely admit that this is not a perfect film. One difficulty, although not necessarily a flaw as such, as was shown by the huge controversy surrounding its release, is that the political analysis it puts forward with almost every frame inevitably sacrifices some of it's validity for the sake of sheer emotiveness. Also, in the last 45 minutes or so, and
especially towards the end, the film takes an increasingly surreal and bleak turn, that, although inevitable for Kusturica's purpose, is something that I'm going to have to fully consider a bit more before I really decide what I think of it. Another slight issue is that this was originally intended to be over 5 hours long, but in the end the full version was only released on Serbian television (I would LOVE to see this version). This does show at points, just in terms of characters occasionally making fairly big jumps of development very quickly and with little chance for the audience to really follow them through the process that lead them too it. This being said though, my complaints are mostly minor, and are easily overshadowed by sheer shining wonder that most of the film evokes in me, so I WHOLE HEARTEDLY recommend it.