Djavolja varos

I watched this movie on YouTube. At first, it was somewhat confusing. The scenes are rather short. There are many (in fact too many) seemingly unrelated characters and stories. But they all connect at the end. Some of the dialogues are hard to understand, especially for people not from SE Europe. I learned that the lonely man in the tunnel is »preparing to be? a monk with a vow of silence« only after reading a review. I do not like violence (that drives me away from many Balkan movies), and there is a lot of aggression and violence in this movie.

But, surprisingly, I watched the film, with interest, until the end, and it seemed to be getting better and better.

It is certainly not a feel-good movie and particularly the sex scene with businessmen\ gangsters is shocking. On the other hand, the characters who behave more or less decently, remain mostly unscathed. But there are also: the ambitious mother who tolerates and even excuses her daughter's violent, devious, vindictive and spoiled boyfriend - obviously because he has a rich father;

the attractive »Madame« of a luxury brothel, called Saloon (she accepts bank cards!);

the lazy unemployed man who feeds beer to his crying baby;

the girl, who fools around with two men... The movie shows the curious and unpleasant side of the human character in a penetrating way. Two schoolgirls are introduced at the beginning. Especially the rich girl's behavior seems to be based on the premise that one must be proud, tough. Saving the face justifies aggression - followed, if necessary, by lame excuses or bribes.

Several characters in this movie – the spoiled brat, the unemployed man, the two schoolgirls, the aggressive cab driver, the egocentric and megalomaniac filmmaker - are really well done and leave a lasting impression. There is a visually nice episode with lots of white rabbits. It connects some threads at the end, but it seemed a bit less convincing to me. For me, the film conveys a message: People have to face the consequences of their actions, and in the long run there is hope for those, who try to be honest.

It's just a bunch of random characters with no charisma involved in, what was supposed to be shocking events. Every story is poorly written and shot and it's just plain weird and uninteresting.

The acting is, as always decent and that's pretty much it. The director is a son of a much more famous and talented director Goran Paskaljevic whose movie Bure baruta (Cabaret Balkan) was a huge hit and was really good. The son wanted to do something similar with this movie, using the same omnibus method but only fell short. So, go watch the gripping Bure baruta instead or a funnier but also serious, Sedam i po (Seven and the half) which were both brilliant, moving and entertaining.