![]() In the one of the more farfetched subplots, Martin pursues the increasingly disillusioned Azra, who is not entirely resistant to his advances, while Divko tries to coax him away from his mother and back into the fold. The players include Leon (Miralem Zubcevic), the village’s Communist former mayor who is now being harassed Savo (Svetislav Goncic), an army captain and next-door neighbor of Lucija and Martin and Martin’s crude, bullying pal Pivac (Mario Knezovic). ![]() The film assumes knowledge about the history and politics of the former Yugoslavia and the wars involved in its breakup that most Americans don’t possess. The other half, it plays like an unconvincing melodrama. Tanovic on the screenplay - has the tone and pace of a farce. Half of the time, the movie - based on a novel by Ivica Dikic, who collaborated with Mr. “Cirkus Columbia” has a similar point of view.īut its tone is much less steady. Tanovic’s first and best movie, “No Man’s Land,” a diabolically absurdist wartime fable that won an Oscar in 2001 for best foreign language film. Now that Communism has fallen in the region, buried animosities bubble up, instant armies coalesce, and paranoia and war fever grip the community.īosnia and Herzegovina was the setting of Mr. In the blindness of ego and the trust in superstition, he embodies the mind-set of senseless warmongering that seizes the populace. Ivanda, congratulating himself on his generosity, installs them in a filthy, municipally owned wreck of a home, where Lucija seethes with rage.ĭivko’s superstitious faith in Bonny is a none-too-subtle metaphor for the collective madness of humanity. Upon his return, he has the police summarily evict her and Martin from the property, though not before she dumps scalding water on the heads of the police. After Divko fled the village for political reasons, which are sketched but not entirely clarified, he never contacted Lucija again. His wife, Lucija (Mira Furlan), still lives there with their 20-year-old son, Martin (Boris Ler). No sooner has Divko arrived, than with the support of Ivanda - a bully connected with the ultranationalist Croatian Ustase - he takes possession of his former home. Arriving in a shiny red Mercedes with his beautiful, much younger girlfriend, Azra (Jelena Stupljanin), and his beloved black cat, Bonny, he is welcomed heartily by his cousin Ivanda (Milan Strljic), the town’s new mayor. In 1991, after 20 years in Munich, Divko returns to his native village in Bosnia and Herzegovina with the triumphal pomposity of an ousted dictator staging a comeback. More than one infuriated observer in “Cirkus Columbia,” Danis Tanovic’s scalding black comedy about the insanity of war, calls its main character, Divko Buntic (Miki Manojlovic), crazy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |