Underground [DVD]

The problem for any critic or reviewer with this storyline is how to pigeonhole the people who have lived underground - who are they? The answer is they are the refugee diaspora of Yugoslavia from WW2 who have had to live frozen in time. Today we have more refugee diasporas and they will also live frozen in time from the time they left their country. Their politics and view of customs will not move on even though their home country has moved on. This is a modern parable seen through the looking glass darkly. You would think history cannot repeat itself but it has - there has been a new wave diaspora. Kusturica has caught this nuance by intertwinning WW2 with the bosnian civil war. They also live underground. When Kusturica uses past news footage he gives a rare insight to a hidden story which Nazi propaganda buried. Kustrurica shows the german army entering Maribor, Zagreb and then Belgrade; whereas when he shows Tito's funeral cortege coming to Belgrade he starts in Ljubljana. The hidden story is that the Wehrmacht suffered a rare defeat on the Slovenian border when invading Yugoslavia - a whole german armed column got wiped out by a yugoslav battey of four artillery pieces commanded by a volksdeucher ( german) officer and therefore the archbishop of Slovenia asked the Italian army to move up from the south thus splitting Slovenia in two and denying the germany army pressganged "volunteers". Goebbels hide this failure under a blaze of publicity which ignored the failure to "conquer" Slovenia. Kusturica is remarkbly historically accurate when he portrays his heroes gaining their arms off a train. Today it is takenfor granted that armies have their own transport but in the 1940 s armies relied on trains to move men and materials which usually resulted in a huge logjam after three days, so three days after the german invasion of Yugoslavia many railway sidings had wagons full of military equipment and ammunition. So what about the film? Fiddler on the roof had a violin playing jew, Kusturica has a brass band played by gypsies. The most poignant moment was the bombing of the zoo - that animals even caged had to suffer man's inhumanity to man. American films always have a note saying no animals were hurt in making their film; this film says animals are hurt when man makes war indiscriminately. For a Bosnian Kusturica has fallen in love with the wide Danube; any of his films without geese look naked. His heroes/ villains are caricatures of real people albeit one in a thousand because most yugoslavs be they bosnian, croat ,serb or slovene are boringly ordinary - they are quintessential 20 th century people who are peasants. They have a barbie - but it generally is a suckling pig not some beef burghers. They enjoy weddings where they dance in a more structured way the kolo or the polka - not for them the shake and vac. So the film has a wedding although funerals can be funnier. So is this film his masterpiece - I would say it is one of them. He is a latterday Hitchcock who has not yet landed on his bittersweet genre and his actors require discipline - they tend to overact - or is that deliberate? One thing in his favour - his films are bright even in the dark so you do not miss the action - and his films are all action - sometimes you long for him to give you respite from his assault on the senses. It is where he does give you respite - at the bleeding rocks, that the story really turns dark. Are you bored with me giving this film five stars - you should not be because it deserves them.

I FIND "Underground" the most symbolic movie made by an Eastern European director ever. Long, long time after the film finished I was wondering when, why and how Kusturitza chose to use his most incredibly funny scenario to picture ALL THE DEMONS of the old communist Jugoslavia and Eastern Europe??? Several shots from this movie are still the unique documents of the time, showing Margaret Tatcher, Leonid Brejnev, Nikolae Chaushesku, Cadaffi , Jimmy Carter, etc. So, not surprisingly the lady in the red dress had to make her choice, so did she...

Kusturica's film is a randy peepshow, a thorny docu-tangle of real-life horror and magical realist wish fulfillments. It explains how a country destroyed itself from the inside, and it exists to show us how not to repeat these mistakes. The people (and animals) in Kusturica's requiem are perpetually restless—there's an idea here that if they stop moving, they would cease to exist. "There is no war until a brother kills a brother." That's Yugoslavia's political and philosophical conundrum in a nutshell, but Kusturica intends his humanist masterwork as a time capsule for all nations. When does the party end and war begin? It doesn't have to.

Nearly didn't watch this as the subject is so dark - but it's wonderful. A dark comedy which is touching, intelligent and funny. it doesn't belittle the tragedy of war but it does tackle the bigger picture - just who suffers in war and who is pulling the strings. Would recommend to anyone enjoys intelligent beautiful films and especially to those who have an interest in the Balkans. I love this director!

A great tale of Yugoslavia

Underground is one of the best (if not The Best) movies made by Emir Kusturica. To understand what a fabulous movie this is you need to see it. I can only assure it that once you've seen it, you simply can not forget it. Never!

The following applies to the Lucky Red release, not the upcoming BFI.Rating is not for the film itself... I watched it many years ago and it's great. One star due to the blu-ray being sourced from an Italy company, which did not bother to include English subtitles. It has the original Serbian language (which is what I wanted and expected), but only Italian subtitles. It also has an Italian dubbed soundtrack for any who can understand that or care to listen to dubbed films (I refuse to watch them).This is entirely my own fault as Amazon do state the languages/subtitles in the product description. I'm unhappy with myself that I didn't notice this. I'll just need to take more care when I order foreign language films from Amazon from now on.So, this is just a warning to any out there who don't understand Serbian or Italian. Oh, and it only includes lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtracks, which is very poor for a 2012 release. Where's DTS HD MA or Dolby TrueHD? Even if it had English subs this would still be a poor release in my opinion.

Excellent film but no English subtitles

C'était très cher, dû à la rareté de l'offre, mais la copie est parfaite et c'est arrivé chez moi à temps.

Un'esplosione di vita innervata con la morte, tragedia in un più vasto dramma pieno di colore e di musica e tratti comico/grotteschi. Caotico e pieno di senso. Commovente e delicato, quanto sanguigno, anche nel montaggio. I personaggi non li potrete dimenticare mai e la colonna sonora ha fatto storia. Credo il più bel film di Kusturica. Guardatelo.

No hablaré de la película, es el Novecento de la ex Yugoslavia y quien la busca la conoce.Se une todo, director, compositor, guión... maravilla.La edición es básica y la caja el tipico mojón con solo el DVD, los recortes llegaron hace mucho y cualquier día vienen los DVDs en sobres.Por 4 euros y pico que me costó es un regalo, de hecho pedí 2 para regalar ;)

Ich bin erst vor kurzem auf die Filme von Emir Kusturika aufmerksam geworden und zwar über den Umweg der Musik von Goran Bregovic, der vor kurzem mit seiner "Wedding and Funeral Band" in der Philharmonie in Luxemburg eine "standing ovation" bekam. Die mitreißende und originelle Musik Bregovics passt wunderbar zu den mitreißenden und originellen Filmen von Kusturika. Von all seinen Filmen, die ich mir angesehen habe, ist "Underground" einer der besten. Eine irreale Welt, skrupellose Gangster, danteske Figuren, ein rhythmisch tadellos aufgebautes Szenario und der ständige Wechsel zwischen Phantasie und Realität machen den Film zu einem Erlebnis. Grandios (und tragisch zugleich) der Schluss, wo die Bewohner des Kellers erfahren, dass der 2. Weltkrieg wohl zu Ende ist, der Balkankrieg aber gerade erst angefangen hat.

this is an amazing movie which covers several decades. the main characters, marko and blacky, are outrageous with their drunken adventures full of sex, fighting, and deceit. although they are best friends, marko deceives his fellow communists who wait in the basement of a safe house thinking he's out fighting nazis.even after the nazis are defeated the subterfuge goes on above as marko and blacky's ex sell arms and carry on, at times with true historic figures like tito, telling the world that blackie died a hero.this tale of ridiculous behavior also has a serious side, particularly the closing scene which shows the characters celebrating each other and bemoaning the loss of their beloved yugoslavia and the continued changes in the balkan states. a highly recommended masterpiece by emir kusterica!