This film should be an example to young Serbian directors of today (Raso Andricu, are you listening) on how to make a quality light, youth-oriented movie.
"Nacionalna klasa" is basically about a young man's reluctance to grow up. It stars Dragan Nikolic as Brana Mitrovic a.k.a. Floyd, a part-time race car driver and full-time freeloader. He's 27, still living with his parents and gives an impression of someone who hasn't put in too many hard working days in his life. Movie follows him through 7 key days of his life during which he:
- tries to weasel out of mandatory military service by faking a kidney disease,
- frantically looks for money to buy new tires for his Zastava Fiat as he's got a big race on the weekend,
- is informed by his girlfriend Vukosava a.k.a. Silja (Gorica Popovic) with whom he maintains a very casual relationship that she's pregnant with his kid and wants to break up, etc, etc...
Movie introduces a bunch of supporting characters too, of whom the most memorable are Mile rent-a-bubreg (Bogdan Diklic) and an eternal film student (played by Aleksandar Bercek) at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts who seems to have it in for famous Spanish surrealist director Luis Bunuel. The right ratio of comedy vs. poignancy is maintained throughout, as to avoid the movie becoming either too frivolous or too preachy.
Will our flawed hero finally become a responsible adult or will he continue his womanizing, mooching and free-spending ways? Well, the movie doesn't say since this is not the kind of major transformation that happens over such a short period but by the end of the flick Floyd definitely doesn't look a care-free guy he did in the beginning of it.
As an aside, it is interesting to watch mid-to-late 1970s Belgrade in the background. This was a definite heyday of the communist, foreign-loan-fueled la dolce vita in Yugoslavia. National basketball team was winning European, World and Olympic titles, people were going to Trieste, Italy on weekend shopping pilgrimages in search of fashionable western merchandise and Goran Bregovic & 'Bijelo dugme' were introducing the mass appeal of rock'n'roll to Yugoslav youth. Unfortunately it didn't last, a slow but steady downhill ride commenced soon afterwards, culminating in what the entire world saw play out in the Balkans during the 1990s.
