whichever corner of the balkans is called home, it is all but unuarguable that Kusturica is the region's greatest filmmaker. i have enjoyed all of his films - most especially "Otac na sluzbenom putu" and "Underground" - but none disturbed me quite like this one disturbed me.
the reason is that he portrays a (former) Yugoslavia i do not know, and have never known. both my parents fled the "acceptable face of communism" during the very years this film shows almost nostalgically. they were roughly the same age as the main character, yet their experience of Tito's paradise was completely and utterly apposite to what Kusturica shows on the screen. the world they knew was one of deprivation and disappearances and harassment and they could not get away from it fast enough.
i am not saying either viewpoint is right or wrong. i just find it eye-openingly disturbing that the same place at the same time can be remembered in such radically different ways.
i believe there is a lesson in that for all of us, especially those of us whose roots lie in the balkans.
