Sjecas li se Dolly Bell (1981)

Director:

Emir Kusturica

Writers:

Emir Kusturica (writer)
Abdulah Sidran (writer)

Release Date:

15 August 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Romance

Plot:

A young man grows up in Sarajevo in the 1960s, under the shadow of his good, but ailing father, and...

Plot Keywords:

Sarajevo | Prostitute | 1960s | Terminal Illness | Urination Scene

Awards:

3 wins

Cast

Slavko Stimac	...	Dino
Slobodan Aligrudic	...	Father
Ljiljana Blagojevic	...	Dolly Bell
Mira Banjac	...	Mother
Pavle Vujisic	...	Uncle
Nada Pani	...	Aunt
Boro Stjepanovic	...	Cvikeras
Zivko 'Zika' Ristic	...	Cica (as Zika Ristic)
Jasmin Celo
Mirsad Zulic	...	Braco Sintor
Ismet Delahmet
Jovanka Paripovic
Mahir Imamovic
Zakira Stjepanovic
Tomislav Gelic

Also Known As:

Do You Remember Dolly Bell? (International: English title)
Te souviens-tu de Dolly Bell?

Runtime:

Argentina:107 min | Yugoslavia:110 min

Country:

Yugoslavia

Language:

Serbo-Croatian

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Argentina:16

Company:

C.F.S. Kosutnjak

Coming of age in Sarajevo

Emir Kusturica's first film Do You Remember Dolly Bell? is a bittersweet comedy set in the former Yugoslavia during the 1960s. The film, which won the Golden Lion Prize at the 1981 Venice Film Festival, is both a coming of age story and a tribute to the city of Sarajevo, long before it was devastated by civil war. To the chagrin of his strict Communist father (Slobodan Aligrudic), sixteen-year old Dino (Slavo Stimac) is more into hypnosis and self-help mantras than Marxist ideology. He recites the phrase "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better" and sings in a new band mandated by the local Eastern European bureaucracy as they relax the Communist grip and allow some influence of Western culture.

Dino's family of six live in a cramped one-room house while they wait for state housing. The father drinks excessively and the family is poor. This is underscored when, during a visit to relatives, the youngest boy makes a point of saying how much he wishes he had a bicycle like the one he sees in the relative's home. Through Dino's relationship with Sonny, an unsavory pimp, he meets a cabaret singer and prostitute Dolly Bell (Ljiljana Blagojevic), named after a stripper in an Italian film they had seen recently at the Culture Club. Dolly is forced by Sonny to wait in the attic of Dino's home until he returns and Dino is a passive onlooker as a band of delinquent boys take their turn with her.

Dino's sweet innocence captivates the young girl, however, and the two form a bond that results in Dino's sexual initiation and first love affair. Dino has to cope with his father's illness, a lung cancer that has become life-threatening and their days together reveal a much mellower man who tells Dino he knew about the girl in the loft and no longer disapproves his using hypnosis and auto-suggestion. While Dolly Bell lacks the polish and cinematic flair of Kusturica's later work, it is an honest and intelligent film, one that avoids sentimentality and provides compelling insight into what it meant to grow up in Eastern Europe during the sixties.