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Cabaret Balkan

1998, Movie, R, 100 mins

Cabaret Balkan: Review

CABARET BALKAN | BURE BARUTA | POWDER KEG, THE
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Anarchy reigns and ordinary people soldier on in this disturbing film, in which intersecting stories unfold over the course of one long, brutal night in Belgrade. A teenager carelessly smashes into an older man's car and flees, hoping the incident will blow over. A cabdriver runs into the policemen who once beat him half to death; the crippled ex-cop was the victim of what he mistakenly thinks was a random act of violence. Two old friends box in a gym; one unburdens himself of a long-ago act of betrayal and triggers a string of confessions that lead to murder. An angry young revolutionary hijacks a bus and harangues its passengers about their complacency in the face of chaos. Yet another man returns after five years abroad, hoping to woo back the girlfriend he abandoned with a grand romantic gesture. The stories overlap at apparently random intervals; characters ricochet from one story to another; the effect is kinetic and disquieting. Goran Paskaljevic's vision of a city about to explode (adapted from Dejan Dukovski's play) seems painfully prophetic in light of events in the former Yugoslavia; its original title was The Powder Keg, and Serbian filmmaker Paskaljevic, a longtime opponent of Slobodan Milosovic's government, was reviled in the Serbian press as a traitor for making it. But the film was shot a full year before this year's NATO strikes began; the sad truth seems to be that the Balkans are in a state of near constant, simmering volatility. A detailed knowledge of the conflicts would doubtless add bitter richness, but the broad strokes are crystal clear: Characters complain resentfully that everything's going to hell and no-one does anything about it, then look for someone to blame. Everyone feels victimized, everyone lashes out, and a perpetual cycle of violence and retribution grinds on. (In Serbo-Croation, with English subtitles.) leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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