Snivaj, zlato moje

This is just one in a long line of Croatian movies that suffer from same disease: no matter if it is a comedy or a humorous drama there is no chance that it keeps good mood in the end. No, there is nothing like happy-end in Croatian movies. It can vary from sad to tragic, and tragicomedy is their only description.

Whilst in Yugoslavia the directors managed to make movies that maybe had some ambivalent, hardly a real happy but rather cynic or ironic end, but still leaving a feeling we had seen a comedy ("Tko pjeva...", "Imam 2 mame i 2 tate"). Serials made in those years already had losers as main characters so their destiny was sealed from the beginning ("Gruntovcani") or the last scene was almost Shakespearean tragic (main female role dying on her wedding day in "...malo misto"). However, after the war it seems that directors became afraid that someone would be offended if movie ended in a light tone. While in "Marsal" the ending is rather poetic and symbolic more than tragic, great war comedy "...rat na mom otoku" ends with a pointless death (Benigni dies in "La vita e bella", but we see life going on and his death had a purpose).

"Snivaj..." does almost the same. Movie that is divided in two parts separated by a 10 years distance balances perfectly between war (and post-war) drama and coming-to-age comedy. Briefly but precisely showing some of most hard years in modern Croatian history with all divisions among people, but also their companionship and relations that go beyond politics (from people who don't know why and who are they fighting for to people who had beliefs but are disappointed in the final result of their fights) it looks as a light urban version of "Sokol...". But when all these dark years pass by and life seems to follow peaceful paths to brighter future in last minutes we are again witnessing a tragic event that makes movie end like some romantic tragedy from 19th century, sweeping away all good mood from the comedy.

During the movie we repeatedly see and hear a group of workers that sing old Croatian songs. Hearing them in Zagreb more than half century ago we can't avoid remembering "Tko pjeva...". Further similarity is a story about adults commented by a kid who observes more than understands. Some characters might seem similar, too, but they are so realistic and so locally typical that we feel them fit in the story (or both stories) and don't mind if they look alike. If you make a movies about sailors in 16th century or Soviet Bolsheviks in Octobar revolution you'll surely have some similar characters, because you can't neglect that some types of person were typical, no matter how much they look like stereotypes.

For people who don't know much about WWII in this region, or life under communist regimes, this movie will be hard to understand. Scenes are short, they are impressions from certain period and you can't learn anything new if you don't have some knowledge already. Though the whole movie is a memory, a collection of flash-backs, it's easy to follow because (except for a dream sequence) they follow the time-line.

If you didn't object ideology (or lack of it) in "Sokol...", if you are not radical communist or modern Nazi (ustasha) you will probably like the way this movie treats those years. But though it is one of the best modern Croatian movies, it still leaves unanswered the question: are Croats able to laugh without crying in the end anymore?

P.S. Unfortunately I had problems with this comment. Trying to compare this movie with some other non-American films I wasn't able to write complete titles of them, because IMDb refused to accept my comment because of too many "mistaken" words. I apologize for reduced titles what may make reading complicated and my statements less clear.