From the front lines of war-torn Eastern Europe comes one of the better (and, in this country, least likely to be seen) films of its year: a clever blend of creative fiction with documentary realism, enjoying the best of both worlds and working on an abundance of levels. On the surface it follows the frustrated efforts of a celebrated Yugoslav film director to document the consequences of an ill-fated Romeo-and-Juliet love affair between an Albanian girl and a Serbian boy violently mutilated by the girl's brothers. The filmmaker can't settle on a title, and his studio bosses won't let him decide on a structure, until compromise and interference transform the project from its original documentary format to melodramatic fiction, and finally to absurd propaganda fantasy. But underneath all the layers of artifice and reality is an even more complicated film, which works as both a sobering look at the tragedy of cultural hatred across arbitrary political borders, and also a satire of communist bureaucracy in the continuing battle between life and art.
Review of A Film with No Name
