Belgrade, '41. Marko and Petar "Blacky", two of best friends and arm dealers, are surprised by World War II and the Nazi invasion. In Marko's house there is a bunker where they hide. But since Petar wants to marry actress Natalia, in whom Marko is also in love with, an intrigue happens: Marko puts Petar, brother Ivan and 20 other people into his bunker, telling them the bombardment is still under way... In '61, Marko marries Natalia and keeps lying to the people in the bunker that World War II is still ongoing, thereby convincing the people there to continue building weapons for him. But when a chimpanzee enters a tank inside and fires a shot breaking the wall, Peter goes out on the surface and starts a "fight" with some actors playing Nazis on a film set, while Marko blows up the bunker... In '92, during Yugoslav Wars, Peter is disillusioned and leads a paramiltary, while his soldiers kill Marko and Natalia. Petar falls into a well and dies.
Epic grotesque tragedy "Underground", directed by Emir Kusturica and written by the inspired Dušan Kovačević, divided the film critics: some praised the brave, bitter story about the cataclysm of war and the detrimental consequences of a mentality of war which numbs human reason, while others complained about the extortionately grotesque tone, pretentiousness and overlong running time of almost 3-hours. Still, "Underground's" surreal frames are full of felliniesque style, some moments are virtuoso directed (at 94 minutes into the film, during Petar's wedding speech, five faces of the guests tilt towards the left, looking directly into the camera, behind the heads of people sitting on the table opposite to them, who then also stylistically turn their heads), while the story is a cynical mix between "The Truman Show", "36 Hours" and "Wag the Dog". Bizarre sequences, like the bombardment of the Zoo from which animals escape (a similar scene was initially planned to be filmed in comedy "Who's That Singing Over There") or archive film footage of the invasion of Nazis in which actors Manojlovic and Ristovski were "slipped in", as well as the bitter plot in which Marko is lying to Petar that in 1 9 6 1 the World War II is still ongoing (!) as an excuse to keep him in the bunker in order to marry his Natalia, affirm a dark message: even after it is over, the war is used by manipulators in order to exploit people who only before death discover that their lives were wasted.
That was bravely shown in the sequence where Petar exits the bunker in '61 and attacks a movie set full of actors who were playing Nazis, thinking they are real Nazis. Even more depressing, his son Jovan, who was born and lived his entire life in the bunker, not knowing anything about the outside world, reminiscent of Plato's allegory of the cave, finally exits, too, looks at the Moon in the night sky and says: "Ah, there's the Sun!" Some have also interpreted the story as an allegory about the 6 republics in Yugoslavia that were forcefully kept together under propaganda and manipulation by the Communist system that invented imaginary enemies from the West and limited their education about the world, while a further interesting feature is that it perfectly summed up the modern mentality of some Slavic countries (not only on the Balkans), whose citizens can only think about WWII, are stuck in the past, thus unable to move on and live their own lives in the present, staying behind in progress. Kusturica does not always hit the right note: the story about the perversion and manipulation of war is so nauseous it will make some viewers sick, and it is overburdened with too many self-indulgent episodes, whereas the way he represents Serbs (exaggerated Balkan and backward mentality displayed as "cute", aggressiveness, back-stabbing...) is not always understandable to everyone. Still, "Underground" is simply too powerful to be dismissed and has to be seen.
Grade:+++
No comments:
Post a Comment