first-class effort by Radivoje Andric, a young Serb director about couples in love during the Yugoslav conflict. At times sentimental, the story and incidents are original, imaginative and the characters are great too. A Serb intellectual who lives a desolate life as a political refugee in Belgrade misses his girlfriend who has emigrated to America. He imagines that his girlfriend is with her to keep him company, and then he imagines a whole cast of people from his past to keep him company during his homeless wanderings through Belgrade. We're never quite sure of how deluded he is; does the girl really exist? Are they really engaged? Then he meets a girl-a real girl-not an imaginary one- who forces him to deal with his realities and make choices. This film-which took a long time to be made because of the Yugoslavia conflict-doesn't get bogged down in politics, but it shows the effects of these events on ordinary people. Too bad it couldn't have been released (for example) in 1999 to give Americans a glimpse of Yugoslavs as a people not merely as a patchwork of ethnic tribes at war with one another. The settings and situations are bleak, but the people are charming, a mixture of the old-fashioned and hip. Don't miss the "computerized dating service" scenes and the matchmaker-they are great fun, if not a little sad. The female lead, Ivana Bolanca is charming and mysterious and vulnerable. Senad Alihodzic, the male lead is thoughtful, happy-go-lucky and bursting with poetry and optimism. I found myself wishing the scenes with imaginary characters could be shortened a bit, and that Ivan Bolanca's character could be fleshed out a bit-she too seemed like a mere romantic projection sometimes. Still, America needs more dreamers like Radivoje Andric to make movies.
