A Film with No Name (1988) User Reviews

Advice: Don't attack the chauvinists, or you'll be crucified.

[preseva-1 · 8/10 · 8 March 2009]

This is a full-length long feature made by Srdjan Karanovic,one of the most celebrated Yugoslav writers-directors of 70tees and 80tees. Karanovic, who was a Prague student (generation with Emir Kusturica, Goran Paskaljevic and Goran Markovic - all of them internationally recognized) was always known as an advanced intellectual who treats his realistic stories with merciless irony. This movie is a story inspired by the true events during the raise of nationalism in ex-Yugoslavia in late 80tees, story of a possible romance between Serbian Guy and Albanian girl - whose nations are in conflict. Despite their good will and naivety, the avalanche of chauvinist-driven emotions burst out from their surrounding and produce very dark,tragic and comic events. In the middle of that chaos a movie-director character is trying to shoot the film about them, and it deepens the chaos even more. This film won "Altin Lale" award at Istanbul Film festival, and although it looked funny and comic for the intellectuals of the day and entertaining for the audience in Yugoslavia, the nationalism before the civil war of the 90tees was already risen to a level where this kind of self-critic and irony was not welcome any more. Film had controversial reviews and caused a pause in the carrier of this very talented director. Srdjan Karanovic was forced to fly abroad to USA and come back after the civil war in Balkans was finished. By its tone and story-telling style, this film is more likely good for the European and Asian,rather than western audience.

movie-making, ad absurdum

[mjneu59 · 8/10 · 17 November 2010]

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.

Untitled (Bez Naslova)

[mowgli_07 · 10/10 · 2 February 2006]

I'm hardly surprised to see no one else has wrote anything about this film, i wonder if anyone has even seen this page before. i first read about this film in a book on avant garde cinema, otherwise i would never have found it. There's no film like it, and i beg you that if you find this page and read this, to somehow find a way of seeing this very short and yet totally powerful Yugoslavian film. Anyway I'm sure you would like to know what it is about :this three minute film consists of nothing but credits- director, producer, department heads, lawyers consultants, accountants, administrators, executive administrators, assistant administrators and the end title.a perfect satire on bureaucracy.

Since writing this a while back, i've noticed that the date and name of the film has changed, so this review doesn't apply here i suppose. Sigh.