2018 - October
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- DirectorZivojin PavlovicStarsDragan NikolicRuzica SokicNeda SpasojevicThe story about Jimmy the Dingy, a young vagabond who works as a seasonal worker. Having been sacked from the job, his dreams are to become a singer. As most of the things in the Balkans happen, he is destined to failure.14-10-2018
The Yugoslav Black Wave was a much-oppressed film movement born in the 1960s in communist Yugoslavia. Spearheaded by angry young filmmakers such as soon-to-be great Dusan Makavejev, Aleksandar Petrovic, Zelimir Zilnik it aimed to portray the life of the common man (read lowlife) in a realistic fashion (read as bleakly downbeat as possible). Discarding conventional narrative forms and wholeheartedly embracing certain cinematic taboos of the age (nudity, profanity, violence) it resulted in a few genuinely striking classics and plenty of pretentious failures by careless wannabe auteurs. As far as film movements go, the Black Wave's successes are few and far between and most of them have lost their punch as they're now 50 years past being modern (and they were all very much contemporary), however, the Black Wave has achieved a considerable following largely due to the fact a lot of these movies were suppressed upon their original release. The greatest Black Wave movie, for me, is, without a doubt, Aleksandar Petrovic's "I Even Met Happy Gypsies", but Zivojin Pavlovic's "When I'm Dead and Gone" is not too far behind. The film follows a few weeks at most in the life of Jimmy the Dingy (Dragan Nikolic), a lowlife swindler who survives entirely on charm and a quick wit, as he navigates his way towards certain disaster. Namely, Jimmy is caught up in a cycle which sees him repeatedly finding himself in the arms of a broken woman who sets him up with a half-decent job only for him to leave after he's cleaned her out for all she's worth. Thus the film basically consists of five vignettes the first of which sees Jimmy and his swindler girlfriend Lilica (Neda Spasojevic) wandering a barren landscape before happening upon a factory where Jimmy finds employment only to steal his co-worker's wallets and escape without Lilica. This opening vignette is the most characteristically Black Wave as it is filled with realistic imagery of poverty and discussions about rampant unemployment. It is also the most emotionally charged as Jimmy's return home doesn't go quite as planned. His encounter with his mother's new husband (Djordje Pura) and presumably his little half-brother is decidedly cold and betrays the roots from which Jimmy had sprung. On the run from the police, he hitches a lift from a jaded singer (Ruzica Sokic) whom he charms and convinces to make a singer out of him. Although entirely talentless, through her connections, she gets him a few gigs and some local journalists to write about him as a pop sensation. This vignette is particularly well done as it seamlessly combines the film's cutting satirical edge with some genuinely emotional scenes involving the singer who is the only character in the film besides Jimmy who is fully fleshed out. Jimmy's singing career takes off and he starts getting gigs in various small towns. While on the road he runs into a lonely girl badly in need of affection (Dara Calenic). Calenic does a very convincing job playing the sad girl in her one big scene but sadly this is a very short vignette as Jimmy soon meets her officer brother (Severin Bijelic) who books him on a tour of various army outposts. Pavlovic uses this vignette primarily to satirise the Yugoslav National Army which is a shame as I think there was much more to Calenic's character which was left unexplored. Eventually, Jimmy gets bored touring small towns and decides to try his luck at a music festival. Accompanied by another sadly underdeveloped female character, an ugly but audacious dental student (Snezana Lukic), he bombs terribly, a failure he blames on her. This vignette is pretty torturous as it contains large amounts of padding consisting of dreadful musical numbers to which Jimmy reacts. Giving up music for good he meets up with Lilica again and the two try to blackmail a factory foreman (Slobodan Aligrudic) with disastrous results. "When I'm Dead and Gone" succeeds where most other Black Wave films fail because instead of being overbearingly bleak and downbeat, it's witty, entertaining, and engaging. By making the film genuinely funny, Zivojin Pavlovic allows us to actually care for the fate of Jimmy the Barge, an otherwise utterly unlikeable character, making the ending all the more shocking (if not entirely surprising). Kudos must also be given to Dragan Nikolic, whose trademark light charm and fearlessness are spot-on perfect for the part. Also notable on the technical level is the excellent cinematography by Milorad Jaksic whose stark black and white manages to be both gritty and beautiful at the same time (as only black and white can be). Jaksic and Pavlovic also achieve several superb long takes such as the fabulous opening scene which introduces us to several of the film's minor and major players in a single shot as they walk to-and-fro a factory (predating the opening of Robert Altman's "The Player" by 25 years). On the other hand, the film does have two major issues. The first one is a problem I have with most Black Wave films (and most of film realism in general, to be honest) and that is that its scope is awfully narrow. While an interesting psychological study, the film has little bearing on me and it seems utterly uninterested to explore anything beyond life in Yugoslavia in the 1960s and its main character. The second problem is that the female characters (besides Ruzica Sokic's singer) are sadly underedeveloped. Who these women are I don't know, but perhaps that was intentional as Jimmy doesn't really get to know them either. He uses them and throws them aside without a second thought. But even with these flaws, "When I'm Dead and Gone" is a superb film and one of the finest Black Wave movies ever made.
3.5/4 - DirectorZivojin PavlovicStarsSlobodan 'Cica' PerovicDusica ZegaracSeverin BijelicA lonely man struggles to find the money for his ill sister's treatment while at the same time trying to escape his past and to make sense of the present.14-10-2018
- DirectorZivojin PavlovicStarsMilena DravicIvica VidovicSeverin BijelicIdealistic young man supports the party and the new Yugoslavia's communist regime, but soon gets involved in various political and criminal machinations becoming more and more confused about what's right and what's wrong.15-10-2018
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsFrank SilveraKenneth HarpPaul MazurskyFour soldiers trapped behind enemy lines must confront their fears and desires.29-10-2018
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsFrank SilveraIrene KaneJamie SmithReady to catch a train to his hometown, a washed-up boxer tells us about the strange and twisty events that happened to him the past couple of days.29-10-2018
- DirectorStanley KubrickStarsSterling HaydenColeen GrayVince EdwardsCrook Johnny Clay assembles a five-man team to plan and execute a daring racetrack robbery.30-10-2018