...if you haven't spent some time in the outskirts of Beograd this movie might not make a lot of sense. I can't say I liked it; I didn't, really, I don't agree with movies that try to 'show reality', I don't think that's what movies are designed to do, but that aside, I think this movie gets a lot correct in its depiction of what passes for youth life in modern Serbia.
Since this movie makes claims on 'reality', I'll weigh in on that.
This is a place where middle-aged people with advanced degrees work at outsourced call centers for USD$400 a month; one girl I talked to, who spoke perfect English and had a BA, revealed her income, working at a cafe where I had coffee each morning, was USD$210 a month; and these are considered decent-enough jobs that one is lucky to have. There are tons of working-class type kids with, literally, nothing to do and nowhere to go. So this movie shouldn't be too surprising. I told the cafe girl what I did (blue-collar material handler) and, since she asked, how much my income was, and it put her into a frantic, depressed, desperate funk for the entire time I was there. I felt really bad. Shouldn't have done that. But she asked.
A couple of things, about the movie itself: Serbia is a strongly patriarchal culture, and I've seen women, daughters, go really, truly crazy at the loss of their fathers. Just lose their s*** completely. In KLIP we see the illness of the protagonists father, and if you know the cultural background, this girl going bats isn't a shock. She flails around looking for some strong, authoritarian figure as a (very bad) replacement. The ending made total sense to me. In the USA this would be called 'Daddy Issues' and be regarded as a kind of disorder, but in Serbia it's just something that can, and does, happen in the usual scheme of things: 'Lost her dad, went crazy' (shrug).
In a somewhat vulgar comment, and in kind of answer to reviews who describe the lead as 'beautiful', well, by Beograd standards she's actually kind of only maybe slightly above average for what is conventionally regarded as beauty. The place is like some bizarre science fiction experiment in genetically engineered women. It's nuts. Armies of 6-foot-tall supermodels strutting around. I usually go out to Zemun so I can see fat people and un-made-up women in sweatpants just to feel normal.
So, KLIP might be a bit exaggerated, but likely not by much. Can't say I liked it, but it's worth watching once.
Since this movie makes claims on 'reality', I'll weigh in on that.
This is a place where middle-aged people with advanced degrees work at outsourced call centers for USD$400 a month; one girl I talked to, who spoke perfect English and had a BA, revealed her income, working at a cafe where I had coffee each morning, was USD$210 a month; and these are considered decent-enough jobs that one is lucky to have. There are tons of working-class type kids with, literally, nothing to do and nowhere to go. So this movie shouldn't be too surprising. I told the cafe girl what I did (blue-collar material handler) and, since she asked, how much my income was, and it put her into a frantic, depressed, desperate funk for the entire time I was there. I felt really bad. Shouldn't have done that. But she asked.
A couple of things, about the movie itself: Serbia is a strongly patriarchal culture, and I've seen women, daughters, go really, truly crazy at the loss of their fathers. Just lose their s*** completely. In KLIP we see the illness of the protagonists father, and if you know the cultural background, this girl going bats isn't a shock. She flails around looking for some strong, authoritarian figure as a (very bad) replacement. The ending made total sense to me. In the USA this would be called 'Daddy Issues' and be regarded as a kind of disorder, but in Serbia it's just something that can, and does, happen in the usual scheme of things: 'Lost her dad, went crazy' (shrug).
In a somewhat vulgar comment, and in kind of answer to reviews who describe the lead as 'beautiful', well, by Beograd standards she's actually kind of only maybe slightly above average for what is conventionally regarded as beauty. The place is like some bizarre science fiction experiment in genetically engineered women. It's nuts. Armies of 6-foot-tall supermodels strutting around. I usually go out to Zemun so I can see fat people and un-made-up women in sweatpants just to feel normal.
So, KLIP might be a bit exaggerated, but likely not by much. Can't say I liked it, but it's worth watching once.