Ljubavni zivot Budimira Trajkovica

"Love?! Where did you read that?" "I haven't read it, I want it that way."

Trajkovic family has been building bridges for generations. But you can't build bridges all the time in the same place, so this profession involves frequent moves from city to city, from country to country. The youngest offspring of this family is already tired of new schools every semester, new friends that he has to leave just as he made them, and most of all, his love life suffers. Shy 17-year-old Budimir Trajkovic needs more time to gather the courage to approach a girl he likes than his family spends in one place. When they finally move to the capital and Budimir experiences true love for the first time, he decides to take his life into his own hands.

This is a coming-of-age story, a story about family, about youthful love, about those things that we all went through in one way or another, that formed us as personalities. The story and its pace are very realistic and natural, the young protagonists, Predrag Bolpacic and Marina Nemet, are not experienced actors, and the camera and direction leave an amateur impression, which is probably a consequence of cheap production, but in this particular case, it just makes the story more believable.

The film is conceived as a romantic and family comedy, in a manner typical of Yugoslav cinema of the 1970s. While our young protagonists carry the dramatic part of the story, Budimir's family gives the film a 'comic relief', similar to the one in "Foolish Years". Ljubisa Samardzic and Milena Dravic have great chemistry and charisma and with their 'love-hate' relationship they almost overshadow the main thread of the story. There are also Mica Tomic in the role of a grandfather (a bit like the one from "Only Fools and Horses"), Bata Zivojinovic, young Neda Arneric, and Sonja Savic and, what many do not notice when watching, Irfan Mensur and Dragan Nikolic lend voices to Budimir and his friend Zvonko.

"The Love Life of Budimir Trajkovic" is not a masterpiece, far from it, but it is a light, relaxed, emotional, at times quite funny, and very dear to me, movie in which, I believe, each of you can find themselves and evoke some fond memories.

7/10.

If you follow the discourse very closely, this movie mocks everything that comes from the west, "the big tie", the psychiatry, sexual education, woman rights, the tulips, and tries to imply that only true workers are capable for true love. The whole charade is even more bizarre when you realize that all main teenager actors actually have voice-overs from old communist movie stars of Yugoslavia from that period (Dragan Nikolic and Ifran Mensur), not credited in the title. Obvious this movie was order by Communist party of Yugoslavia itself, and my head hurts from its messages and values it promotes. (poverty and totalitarianism is good, too much freedom and too much rights are bad). It should be played on sociology classes as the great example of totalitarian propaganda "art".

One of the most famous Yugoslavian movie with a great story which is making us to ignore not such a great acting.

Story is about young Budimir Trajkovic, who is moving with the family quite often. His father is the bridge constructor. Budimir is the only son of his parents, so mother is trying to make him go away from any trouble. Dad is a nice and average man. Grandpa is another member of their family, really funny guy.. Classical old man. Anyway, all of them are affecting on Budimir on some ways, so he is still far away from being an independent man. He's still a peaceful kid who's got an ambition to change the things. He moves to Belgrade and starts the new life there. More and more becoming different, till the end. I won't describe more details, just watch the movie.

This isn't just a regular film, it is describing the situation of quite a lot of families and kids. About parents which are ''choking'' their kid and trying to make him be an average person like they are. But this young individual is one of the rare kids which didn't allow them to, and at the end we've got a bump - he's making his first decisions as a grown man.

So, at the end it's an interesting and funny movie with a few strong lessons behind it.

P.S. As I said, acting isn't really on the WORLD CLASS level, just an average classic for the Yugoslavian movies of that time. However, story is great, idea is great and you've gotta see this movie!