CANNES -- Emir Kusturica's "Life Is a Miracle" comes roaring at you with all the noisy exuberance and crazy frivolity of a Balkan festival. That the movie takes place during a cruel and dirty war underscores the filmmaker's tragicomic view. "Life" is the Serbian writer-director's attempt to put his feelings on film about the conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It's a big, messy movie filled with music and slapstick, but at its heart, it is a love story.
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
CANNES -- Emir Kusturica's "Life Is a Miracle" comes roaring at you with all the noisy exuberance and crazy frivolity of a Balkan festival. That the movie takes place during a cruel and dirty war underscores the filmmaker's tragicomic view. "Life" is the Serbian writer-director's attempt to put his feelings on film about the conflicts that tore apart the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It's a big, messy movie filled with music and slapstick, but at its heart, it is a love story.
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
This will not be everyone's cup of tea. Kusturica overdirects many scenes as he strives to keep the screen in constant turmoil. And as much as one appreciates the marvelous, melodic songs emanating from the No Smoking Orchestra, the gypsy techno-rock band in which Kusturica plays guitar, the music tends to overwhelm the drama.
Yet within the chaos lies a love poem to the people of the Balkans and a sunny optimism that love will salvage humanity from the depths of its own self-destructive tendencies. The film appears headed for many festival and theatrical playdates throughout the world.
Kusturica, who wrote the script with Ranko Bozic, handles a "Romeo and Juliet" story with a nod to Shakespeare along with a few winks at Fellini, the Marx brothers and Brecht. He spends the first hour simply setting the stage.
In Bosnia in 1992, Luka (Slavko Stimac), a Serbian engineer from Belgrade, has dragged his opera-singer wife, Jadranka (Vesna Trivalic), and his talented soccer-playing son, Milos (Vuk Kostic), to a small village where he intends to build a railroad to link Bosnia with nearby Croatia and open up the spot to tourism. Colorful rustic characters cavort in this bucolic setting, with drunken parties and festivities erupting at a moment's notice.
Jadranka, despite suffering from an allergy to dust, breaks into song at every occasion. Nearly everyone is blind to the approaching war, which a local army captain (Stribor Kusturica, the director's son) assures people will never happen.
Then conflict erupts. Milos is called up by the army and is soon taken hostage. Jadranka disappears with a Hungarian musician. The army brings a Muslim woman, Sabaha (Natasa Solak), to Luka to be his hostage to exchange for his son. Only Luka, who is incapable of unkindness, treats her more like a houseguest. Eventually, the two fall in love, which complicates the matter of a hostage exchange.
Kusturica never lets his movie take a downturn into the carnage of war. Even as mortars pound the village and explosions rock Luka's house, life, love and music continue. There is an element of the surreal here, a kind of Balkan magic realism, that captivates.
This also allows Kusturica to get away with a lot of muddled mise-en-scene. Sequences spin virtually out of control, and characters do not behave in normal ways. Like the villagers, Kusturica refuses to yield to life's tragedies; he prefers to cling to its miracles. His film is, he himself declares, "sadly optimistic."
Because the film is a virtual concert by the No Smoking Orchestra, music clearly plays a central role with outstanding songs and lyrics. All other technical credits are first-rate, including Michel Amathieu's crisp, fluid cinematography, Zora Popovic's folkloric costumes and designer Milenko Jeremic's country dwellings.
LIFE IS A MIRACLE
Les Films Alain Sarde
Credits:
Director: Emir Kusturica
Screenwriters: Ranko Bozic, Emir Kusturica
Producers: Alain Sarde, Maja and Emir Kusturica
Director of photography: Michel Amathieu
Production designer: Milenko Jeremic
Music: Dejan Sparavalo, Emir Kusturica
Costume designer: Zora Popovic
Editor: Svetolik Mica Zajc
Cast:
Luka: Slavko Stimac
Sabaha: Natasa Solak
Jadranka: Vesna Trivalic
Milos: Vuk Kostic
Veljo: Aleksandar Bercek
Captain Aleksic: Stribor Kustruica
Running time -- 154 minutes
No MPAA rating...
- 5/15/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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