Necista krv-greh predaka

A Serbian movie that is so far from the historical facts to claim that the Ottoman Empire, famous for its tolerance, did not allow church bells to be rung for 400 years. It's also racist enough to make Turks look like monsters. And it's too erotic look like a porn movie. It is a very bad movie in terms of art, fiction and acting.

This movie shows a patriarchal, Oriental Serbia in the hands of the Ottomans towards the end of their reign. Some of you wrote that the Ottomans were known for their tolerance. That is not so. They took women as desired, they separated young boys from their mothers to raise them as janissaries, they beheaded prominent people, etc. So, yes, they were evil and they ruled brutally. And yes, they did not allow church bells to ring. We have lived through centuries of Ottoman rule and we have tons of documents to prove all these facts. You may not like this, but this is how it was.

The movie is solid. The costumes are good. Sex scenes are there to show lust and passion. Many forbidden and secret loves happened, so lust was understandable when two people in love were alone. The sex scenes are way less portrayed than in most American movies anyway. A patriarchal family where the man in the house is the boss. He thinks he is doing all the right things to save his power and influence, but all he does is ruin the lives of his family members, one by one. Women were treated as second class citizens. This is how it was in Serbia at the time.

Most people make a mistake by looking at things from today's perspective. We have to observe the things from the time when they happened, and things were very much different then. We are talking about the 19th century in this case.

All in all, this is a fair portrayal of 19th century Serbia under the Ottoman Turks. For Western viewers, this may come a bit raw and harsh, but most Balkan movies are like that. It is helpful to know some history before watching Balkan movies.

I find that placing the Ottoman Vranje in the framework of western genre completely missed the point, as Vranje, a wealthy merchant Ottoman town, was not at all so chaotic and violent a that time. Also there is a lot of orientalism in depicting characters, all of that absolutely not present in the literary work of Stankovic, upon ehich the film is based.

It is true that evil strikes. The terrible truth is that this is happening even now. It is also true that evil cannot be prevented by evil. Besides, the film has no other meaning than to earn some money from the current occupiers. The wrong movie at the wrong time is a complete disaster.

One of the things that is great about this movie is it's production and authentic look of nineteenth century Serbia under the crumbling Ottoman empire, also since this is a Balkan movie it is really close to western production standards. The film is a prequel of well known book called Necista Krv (Impure blood) by Borisav Stankovic, a well known Serbian author. The film show how the local Serbian elite to preserve their status and power colluded with the Ottoman occupiers and made deals with them in secret and even trading their loved ones when times get tough. The main character is man who is unhappy with the state of his family and their many sins that they commit daily of which the whole town talks about (as a saying goes "o cemu carsija prica nego onama"). The family member are mostly "stained" by their lack of control of their emotions as well as their lust to which the main character knows about both keeps things "hush, hush" to preserve their wealth and influence. The Ottoman are shown mostly as evil, both the Serbs are shown to mostly commit the necessary evils to survive (which is partly true historically). In the end the movie has high productions value for Serbian production, the authenticity of dress and morals of that time is greatly done, and it's worth seeing, both not as good as I expected! Recommended.