Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Blue 9

Plavi 9; sports drama, Croatia, 1950; D: Krešimir Golik, S: Irena Kolesar, Jugoslav Nalis, Antun Nalis, Ljubomir Didić

"Dinamo" is a successful Croatian football club, but the fame of one of the popular players, under dress "Blue 9", Tonči Fabris, rose to his head. In order to get rid of the problematic and spoiled Fabris, the trainer finds a new one, a modest and unknown young player, Zdravko. Fabris finds out about this and tries to sabotage Zdravko's acceptance into the club. Both fall in love with Nena, a student at a shipyard and an excellent swimmer. Under Fabris' influence, she gets alienated from her friends and Zdravko, but when she finds out about Zdravko's sacrifice, she returns to him. In a football match, "Dinamo" wins three to one.

Sports comedy "Blue 9" starts almost as a promotional film for the Croatian football club "Dinamo", but then swings away to another, vague subplot revolving around potential swimmer Nena, which is far fetched and barely relevant to the title and the opening, placing "Dinamo" as a frame story, at best. Despite a fine black and white cinematography and some interesting settings - the moral message is suitable for the socialist Yugoslavia, since the spoiled football player Fabris who represents all the negative traits (selfish abandoning of the team spirit for decadence and his personal gains) is juxtaposed to the new, modest player Zdravko who represents all the positive sides (collective cooperation with the football team and willingness to sacrifice some of his personal goals for the greater good), while Nena is there to decide who is a better role model - yet the storyline is stale and lax, failing to ignite a flame that will catapult it into something more than a standard, though correct entertainment for the masses, making it one of the lesser works of director Krešo Golik, who later made far better and rounded up films ("I Have Two Mothers and Two Fathers"; "The Girl and the Oak", "He Who Sings Means No Harm").

Grade;+

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