Underground

Emir Kusturica's magnificent fresco rips through half a century of the tragic history of his homeland -- the former Yugoslavia -- with all the solemnity of an amusement park ride. It won the director the 1995 Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or, but also landed him in a heap of trouble with critics who construed this essentially nonpartisan film as pro-Serbian propaganda. As the Germans begin their 1941 siege of Belgrade, entrepreneurial friends Marko (Miki Manojlovic) and Blacky (Lazar Ristovski) manufacture arms for sale on the black market. Their self-serving impulses are mistaken for patriotism, and the pair become heroes of the Communist Party freedom fig...