Own the rights?
I am a big admirer of Srdjan Dragojevic, and beside Emir Kusturica I consider him the best Serbian director. When his first movie "Mi nismo andjeli" (1992) was released he was a very young director and it was obvious that he has a lot of talent. Only four years after graduation and very good debut he released exceptional "Lepa sela lepo gore" (1996), a movie which is so unbelievable and amazing that cannot be described in words. After that he released great, brave, but very often misunderstood "Rane" (1998), and his last "movie" until now was "Mi nismo andjeli 2" (2005), movie created obviously for commercional reasons only, and therefore I do not count it in his filmography as much as the previous three. He was only 30 and some years old and already had two great movies, and one true masterpiece. He hasn't done anything since 1998, so I eagerly waited his new film."Sveti Georgije ubiva azdahu" is third Serbian most expensive movie ever with budget of 4500000-5000000€. When I heard that Srdjan Dragojevic is finally making a new film, and that he has, for Serbian conditions, abnormally big budget I was thrilled, and my expectations were sky-high. I was very glad that Lazar Ristovski is playing the leading role because he is my favorite Serbian actor. So I expected this movie to be something really remarkable. The script was written by acknowledged writer Dusan Kovacevic, based upon elements that actually happened during the WW1, and his grandfather was one of the people with disabilities who was sent to front.Idea for the story is great, but the script is not so good, especially the dialogs. The opening scene looked pretty bad, and from beginning I knew that this is not going to be masterpiece like "Lepa sela lepo gore". It seemed to me that first part of the movie is too long (about hour and a half), while second, more important part, that represent movie's story and point was much, much shorter (about 30 minutes). The characters are pretty undeveloped, and you can't see much emotions out of them, probably because of not so good performances, miss-casting and undeveloped script. The editing was done pretty lame, because it was done in a big hurry. New Serbian actor Milutin Milosevic was bad and unconvincing, and I really don't know how this beginner got so major part in a big film like this. Lazar Ristovski was pretty good, but not excellent like he usually is, and Natasa Janjic was convincing enough. Boris Milivojevic's performance was very bad, and terribly parodyc (like always). There was one actor who was so bad as hunchback that he practically ruined every scene in which was in. I didn't understood a word he was saying. Best performance in whole movie was given by great Branislav Lecic, and every shot in which he was in is great. Bora Todorovic gave very calm and wise performance, and Predrag Vasic was very good as orphan boy. The rest of the cast was not so relevant and notable.These are all bad sides of this movie, but it's not everything that's bad in it, on the contrary, there is much more good sides. Everything that was wrong is the product of many severe problems that makers had from time they got an idea to make it, and later during post-production which lasted about three years. At the end they barely got the money to edit, and release it, so many things were done in a big hurry. Srdjan Dragojevic first got this idea, and tried to make this film in 1999, and it took him 10 years to finish it. When he finally started filming, he obviously experienced how difficult it is when you want to do something really big and ambitious in Serbia, and many things were on his way to make it the way he wanted to. In interview Dragojevic said that this film took 10 years of his life, and now he can't wait premiere so he can leave directing and movie business and start doing something else. I sincerely hope that this is not going to happen because European cinematography is going to lose one great, talented director who can do a lot more than this film.Due to all of it's lacks, "Sveti Georgije ubiva azdahu" manages to be a pretty good movie. There are some really great scenes, and some fantastic parts of it. Great scenes are appearing suddenly like gleams pulling this film out of failure which is avoided because of Dragojevic's great skills of directing. Essence of this story and movie is Serbian mentality and history, showed through many hidden metaphors and some clever lines, especially by Bora Todorovic's wise character. This movie is not showing just our past, it shows our present and I am afraid that it shows our future as well. We are always going to divide ourself on "normal and crippled people" or "criples that are born that way and cripples that became lake that", or "town people and 'yokels'", or "real Serbs and 'not-Serbs'", or "Crvena Zvezda fans and Partizan fans", or "folkers and people who listen to something else" or "democrats and radicals" and so on, and on, as long as we exist. As long as we are dividing and fighting between us the others are grabbing the opportunity doing to us the same things that we do to one another, leaving us to "walk in the dark" forever. Basiclly this is a good movie that should have been great, but still, despite of it's weak sides, it should be viewed by everyone because of it's significance for Serbian people and cinematography.
You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers. They will be examined and if approved will be included in a future update. Clicking the 'Update' button will take you through a step-by-step process.
