La Emboscada

It's hard to review this movie since it seems to require a knowledge of post-WW II Yugoslavia that I don't have. I certainly enjoyed it but was never able to escape the feeling that I was missing important points. The movie is set (I think--it's never made explicit) in the days right after WW II and is about a high school student who is a member of the communist party but is witness and participant of a number of incidents that make him question the motivation of his fellow party members. It is hard to believe that a movie that cynical about how the communists took over was able to be made in a communist country. (Although there are many close ups of pictures of Stalin so I got the impression that the director was laying a lot of the blame of the excesses of the period on him.) The story is told with a lot of humor and with short jerky scenes that often raise more questions than they answer. Bonus points for lots of great folk music, which would be reason enough to watch even if the rest of the movie wasn't so enjoyable.