BURE BARUTA (1998)
(CABARET BALKAN) (1998)
A Film Review
Copyright Dragan Antulov 2004
Violent destruction of former Yugoslavia resulted, among many
other things, with quite a few films dealing with those events. The
best among them were those that had approached this process
indirectly, mostly by showing the cultural, political and moral
aftermath of such violence or trying to explain how all that
happened. One of those films was BURE BARUTA, 1998 Serbian
drama directed by Goran Paskaljevic.
The plot, based on the stage play by Dejan Dukovski, is set in
Belgrade during one cold night in December 1995. Boris (played by
Nikola Ristanovski), androgynous entertainer in one of Belgrade's
night clubs, rants about his city and his country having lost any hope
of decent life. What happens next seems to prove his point. The film
follows some twenty or so characters in the series of vignettes during
which seemingly innocent events - a bus ride, old friends chatting,
lovers quarrelling, a train ride - always degenerate into violent and
deeply disturbing experience for at least one of the participants.
BURE BARETA appeared in non-Serbian cinemas just as NATO
bombs started to rock that country. That was something of a double-
edged sword for the film - on one hand, bombing campaign gave the
extra publicity; on the other hand, the film lost something of its point.
BURE BARUTA describes Serbia in the period when that country
wasn't directly affected by ex-Yugoslav wars. Military operations and
large destruction used to happen beyond Serbian borders and the
only unmistakable sign of war was in the form of crippling UN
sanctions. Despite ruined economy and despite rampaging organised
crime, Serbia nominally gave impression of some sort of normality.
People were still going to work, children went to school, some people
even tried to make money through honest means or change the
government through democratic means. But Paskaljevic knew that
this normality was just an illusion - the fabric of Serbian normality
had been torn down long before the first NATO bomb hit Serbian
territory.
Many compared BURE BARUTA with RANE, Srdjan Dragojevic's
film that had dealt with similar issues. Paskaljevic, unlike Dragojevic,
chose to present moral descent of Serbia through much broader set of
characters. Protagonists of BURE BARUTA aren't teenagers who
grew up in violence and don't know anything better - they are adults
who are supposed to know better. Despicable acts are committed by
mild-mannered intellectuals and former idealistic revolutionaries;
collapse of moral values have stripped away the thin layer of
"civilisation", "enlightenment" and "decency" and left those men with
the same atavistic impulses that plague their uneducated,
impoverished lower-class countrymen. The very randomness of the
violence is another disturbing thing in this film - it erupts suddenly,
triggered by a word, gesture or, more often than not, impulses
understood only by their perpetrators. Violence is sometimes
accompanied by acts of absurdity and black humour - in one
particularly macabre scene, one character makes reassuring and
calming gestures towards victims, while his friends loses himself in
the orgy of violent destruction. Violence is not always limited
towards other people - some of the scenes feature characters who are
undoubtedly suicidal and even relish in the utter irrationality of their
acts.
BURE BARUTA was highly respected in its time, but it was hardly
the most popular Serbian film around. RANE dealt with similarly
bleak subjects and similarly violent and depraved protagonists, but
the bleakness was modified with humour and "hip" editing
techniques. Paskaljevic, who is veteran filmmaker, discards all those
cheap tricks. Film's non-linear narrative structure is hardly a tribute
to Tarantino - it actually underlines the tightness of the script.
Paskaljevic also shows all the events in the film with almost solemn
seriousness. Few macabre situations can be funny in their own way,
but audience is quickly reminded that the story isn't a happy one.
Paskaljevic's talents are aided by the impressive cast that features
various generations of top Serbian actors, ranging from legendary
veteran Ljuba Tadic (in a short but effective cameo) to young 1990s
stars like Nebojsa Glogovac, Ana Sofrenovic and Mirjana Jokovic.
Serbia today is somewhat nicer place than it used to be six years ago
and many could discard this film as nothing more than a reflection of
that country's past hopelessness. It is a very disturbing but powerful
film that can still serve a useful purpose. By showing how a
seemingly "normal" country and its people can degenerate into
cesspool of violence and moral descent, BURE BARUTA warns that
such things can happen again, and not only to Serbia.
RATING: 9/10 (++++)
Review written on August 20th 2004
Dragan Antulov a.k.a. Drax
http://film.purger.com - Filmske recenzije na hrvatskom/Movie Reviews in
Croatian
http://www.ofcs.org - Online Film Critics Society
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