Contrary to one of the previous comments, this movie hasn't got anything to do with propaganda. Its main character Iva (Goran Visnjic) is an apolitical moralist who has problems with followers of all tyrannic ideologies that have influenced his country short time before, during, and short time after the Second World War: Partisans, Ustase, Nazis and Communists, and likes none of them. More modern political issues weren't touched by this movie at all, and therefore it can't have anything to do with propaganda. It shows certain kinds of terrible things that happened to ordinary people in every war in history from a perfectly human and apolitical perspective. It doesn't incite either national, ideological, or religious hate. In my opinion, this is one of the best movies ever made in Croatia. Even though Croatia makes quite a small amount of movies per year, and even though most of them aren't very good, I believe this movie can without second thoughts be said to be better than any average movie filmed in, say, Hollywood.
As I said, this movie is an anti-war movie about the madness and awfulness of hate, murder, and sorrow bred by the war and their influence on lives of ordinary people. Iva has a normal, happy life until the Nazi regime takes over the government of Croatia. He saves the life of his Jewish friend, and he is forced to join the Partisans (the first antifascist movement on the European soil) because Gestapo is after him. The former Partisans come to power after the War and set Communism as the country's ideology. New government's politics are causing misfortune to the common people, and Iva frequently has to use his influence as a former Partisan colonel to save his friends from the regime. When he, during a family dinner, calls Yugoslav president Tito 'A selfish egocentric and a world-class snob', his brother-in-law, an officer of the secret police, has him imprisoned as a political prisoner. This leads to a whole series of unfortunate events, including the suicide of his wife, and Iva spending four years in Yugoslavia's most notorious prison. After the film's merry beginning, and its depressing main part, comes an ending filled with optimism. Many more things happen between the events I've mentioned; the movie is almost three hours long. It's well directed, and is possibly one of the most modernly made Croatian movies. I'd sincerely recommend to anyone, even if they are not from ex-Yugoslavia, because I think it's, objectively speaking, a good movie.
