SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Fluentiama Perfect cast and a good story

Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

alex_kipiani It's a best movie I have seen during the last few years. After the film I had feeling that Hollywood is just a factory producing cheep colored jewelry. The film is a drama with happy end. In this movie you can find real feelings, real values. There is described the philosophy of war, how stupid and silly it can be. Kusturica's humor is sharp and true. The most funny for me in this film was a place with international "peacekeeping" organizations , there "role" in solving of conflicts, "saving" people. In fact the author shows how useless and inadequate are those organizations in such cases. Kusturica is a great as usual and the soundtrack like in all his films too.

Fabrizio Life is really a miracle, or rather some miracles. And one of them is to realize that at least one director, despite of the lack of ideas, capabilities, culture and courage nowadays creeping through the modern cinema background, can still shoot such wonderful masterpieces. Kusturica perfectly draws scenes and characters, plays with music and animals, skilfully weaves the plot and cover the whole lenght of the movie with something magic that only a Jugoslavian can create. This is film obviously shows also a dramatic and harsh reality, but always relieved by a light-hearted approach to life.I do not really understand how can someone assert that this movie is a copy or a repetition of previous Kusturica's ones. Should have any sense, for example, a critic to the great Kurosawa because some of his genial masterpieces are similar one another or since they deal always with samurai's stories?

jomipira There is nothing worse than a talented filmmaker that is trapped inside is own creation. Emir Kusturica is one of those cases. He reinvented the way comedy is done, he showed the world a new approach on making movies. But now... what once was funny, now is stupid, what once was powerful, now is ridiculous, what once was deep, meaningfull but yet entertaining, now is just superficial and cheap laughs. The man that brought us movies like Underground is now reduced to a pale, shallow imitation of himself. Even the music suffers. The brilliance of Goran Bregovic is now replaced with a boring repetitive tune that plays on and on through the entire film. If you're a die hard fan of Kusturica's movies go ahead, but for everyone else, please stick to the good old ones.

checcocinema Kusturica repeats himself, it's the first thing that comes to mind when leaving the cinema. Still, this is not necessarily a negative sign, for an author who has been able to create "Underground" or "Black cat, white cat". This movie is an authentic hymn of joy to life, love and humanity (sure, also that grotesque humanity that in the Balkan countries may look wild sometimes), thus we can be happy that Kusturica has achieved once again this objective. In addition, Kusturica stress here in an unusual way for him the real power of sentiment between two persons which can overcome war and ethnic division.However, the instruments that Kusturica uses are this time too familiar for us and we cannot avoid the impression of the repetition of the same gags and expressions that we have seen in his previous films. This "déjà vu" becomes impressed in our minds since the beginning, just after the magnificent aperture of the movie. A "déjà vu" which allows us to anticipate the gestures of the each character. In addition, the carnaval does not allow to catch the important political assumption of this movie, which is that that war was a war instigated by all illegal dealers on both sides to preserve and increase their traffics and that first of all the fights happened within each camp, to eliminate those who were promoting a fair and decent life (see the murder of the Serbian mayor by his Serbian deputy). This political assumption is one of the strongest elements of the movie, but is Kusturica's carnaval reinforcing or diluting this powerful message?I believe that Kusturica is now come to a real crossroad: either he continues to follow his colorful and sometimes grotesque representation of the Balkan soul and in this way simply repeating himself or is he addressing new territories with different instruments. This movie represents some old and some new for him: this is its strength and its weakness. I hope to see Kusturica taking the challenge and using his immense creativity to enter into a new dimension.