Underground (1995)

Once upon a time there was a country... and that country was called Yugoslavia. And once upon a time there was a director... and his name was Emir Kusturica. Kusturica's talents are undeniable. Outside the main countries of cinema production, he can boast to be a master filmmaker, exploring to the fullest his country's heritage and peculiar traditions in surreal epics which gain their strength not by the hidden metaphors within, but by the fabulous character studies, the attention to cinematic detail, the use of traditional music, and the perfect equilibrium he finds for delivering a powerful message through humorous situations and surreal-like circumstances. "Underground" gained him his second Palm d'Or, and is a tribute to a country he clearly loves. But so easily could it have become another political epic, with the same type of messages and a raw look on war and conflict that we have seen a million times. Kusturica denies all this and instead presents a 50 year long fairytale. At first glance, the movie seems the story of two friends Marko and Blacky (Miki Manojlovic and Lazar Ristovski respectively, Ristovski's performance being just down right fabulous) and the woman Natalija who divides the love between them (Mirjana Jokovic) over three different parts of Yugoslavia's history (the second world war, 1941, the cold war, 1960s, and the Yugoslavian war, in 1992). But the movie is much more than that. It is an allegory to the history of the country, showed through the way their relationship evolves and the situations that occur, with an increasing amount of surrealism and "what the hell?!" right through to the end of this 3 hour long epic. The segments are framed by Forest Gump-like scenes, where the characters are inserted in real-life footage. The first segment shows the invasion of Yugoslavia by the nazis, and how Marko and Blackie, one a slick businessmen and gun manufacturer, the other just a crazy-raw-warrior-life-liver, deal with it. Natalija is portrayed as a shallow woman who goes from one to the other and then to the arms of a german officer. Marko and Blacky go after the woman and the nazis, and the first segment ends with a showdown where Blacky supposedly dies. The second segment 15 years later, sees that Marko has risen in the new regime, but he holds a secret. Married now to Natalija, he has never told his gun manufacturing group (which are lead by a very much alive Blacky) that the war has ended. So they live in a cellar for more than 15 years, manufacturing guns, and thinking the nazis rule the surface. Only, lead by Blacky, one day they decide to go up, and all hell breaks loose. The third segment is in the 1990s, and is more surreal. The characters meet up in almost dream like circumstances in Bosnia, to a fairy tale climax. The richness of the film comes not by its hidden political message, but by the tribute to the making of a country, and the ties of friendship over 50 years that are metaphors for all else. If in the end things don't make sense it does not matter. Kusturica gives life not only to the 3 main characters, but to the various side characters, that are given enough time to be relevant, making them all appealing and right for the role they play: the embodiment of a nation. The humour is always present (the Kusturica-kind), the song and dance also. But ultimately, this is probably Kusturica's most humane film, mainly because it is a labour of love. It may be a little too long in its 3 hours, but the way everything is combined on the screen gives it always motives for attention. The actors themselves assume that they are playing in a fairy tale, but isn't life just that? Underground is one of the most powerful fairy tales ever filmed, and if it is not a masterpiece... well, it is pretty damn close.