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A moderately involving political fable and rare Croatian comedy, "Marsal" (aka "Marshal Tito's Spirit") is the country's entry for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. It's a long shot at best for a nomination and has no domestic commercial future beyond film fest and ethnic cineaste engagements. The film was showcased recently in the American Cinematheque series "Wednesdays in Croatia".

The second feature-length project from director Vinko Bresan ("How the War Started on My Island"), "Marsal" opened in Zagreb in December 1999 and was a boxoffice success. It was greeted as a reconciliation-themed comedy with a remarkable timeliness. Bresan collaborates again on the provocative and irreverent screenplay with his playwright father, Ivo.

Considered so touchy a film when it premiered in Croatia that television advertising for it was censored, "Marsal" is set on a small unnamed island so isolated that a "red" revival occurs when superstitious locals come to believe the ghost of Yugoslavia's former dictator is walking among them. In fact, it's a mental patient bearing an uncanny resemblance to Josip Broz (Marshal Tito), who died in 1980, but many of the island's aging communists take the opportunity to seize power.

Led by cynical zealot Marinko (Ilija Ivezi), the old World War II partisan fighters go one step further than the mayor (Ivo Gregurevic), who has dreams of opening a Tito-themed tourist attraction. An investigating policeman from the mainland, Stipan (Drazen Kuhn), is a local boy who has the most success with attracting the fetching daughter (Linda Begonja) of the bewildered Tito impersonator.

Evenhanded in its skewering of Croatian social strata and lampooning of generational bad habits but hardly incendiary or particularly urgent for non-Europeans, "Marsal" employs communist symbols and traditions for gags, while the humor varies widely from fart jokes to screwball comedy. The actors are more memorable than the material, but "Marsal", like mild medicine, plays out more rewardingly the less one complains about the experience.

MARSAL

Interfilm

Director: Vinko Bresan

Screenwriters: Ivo Bresan, Vinko Bresan

Producers: Ljubo Siki, Ivan Maloa

Director of photography: Zivko Zalar

Production designer: Mario Ivezi

Editor: Sandra Botica Bresan

Costume designer: Vesna Plese

Music: Mate Matesi

Color/stereo

Cast:

Stipan: Drazen Kuhn

Slavica: Linda Begonja

Marinko: Ilija Ivezi

Luka: Ivo Gregurevic

Jakov: Boris Buzancic

Running time -- 91 minutes

No MPAA rating...

A moderately involving political fable and rare Croatian comedy, "Marsal" (aka "Marshal Tito's Spirit") is the country's entry for the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. It's a long shot at best for a nomination and has no domestic commercial future beyond film fest and ethnic cineaste engagements. The film was showcased recently in the American Cinematheque series "Wednesdays in Croatia".

The second feature-length project from director Vinko Bresan ("How the War Started on My Island"), "Marsal" opened in Zagreb in December 1999 and was a boxoffice success. It was greeted as a reconciliation-themed comedy with a remarkable timeliness. Bresan collaborates again on the provocative and irreverent screenplay with his playwright father, Ivo.

Considered so touchy a film when it premiered in Croatia that television advertising for it was censored, "Marsal" is set on a small unnamed island so isolated that a "red" revival occurs when superstitious locals come to believe the ghost of Yugoslavia's former dictator is walking among them. In fact, it's a mental patient bearing an uncanny resemblance to Josip Broz (Marshal Tito), who died in 1980, but many of the island's aging communists take the opportunity to seize power.

Led by cynical zealot Marinko (Ilija Ivezi), the old World War II partisan fighters go one step further than the mayor (Ivo Gregurevic), who has dreams of opening a Tito-themed tourist attraction. An investigating policeman from the mainland, Stipan (Drazen Kuhn), is a local boy who has the most success with attracting the fetching daughter (Linda Begonja) of the bewildered Tito impersonator.

Evenhanded in its skewering of Croatian social strata and lampooning of generational bad habits but hardly incendiary or particularly urgent for non-Europeans, "Marsal" employs communist symbols and traditions for gags, while the humor varies widely from fart jokes to screwball comedy. The actors are more memorable than the material, but "Marsal", like mild medicine, plays out more rewardingly the less one complains about the experience.

MARSAL

Interfilm

Director: Vinko Bresan

Screenwriters: Ivo Bresan, Vinko Bresan

Producers: Ljubo Siki, Ivan Maloa

Director of photography: Zivko Zalar

Production designer: Mario Ivezi

Editor: Sandra Botica Bresan

Costume designer: Vesna Plese

Music: Mate Matesi

Color/stereo

Cast:

Stipan: Drazen Kuhn

Slavica: Linda Begonja

Marinko: Ilija Ivezi

Luka: Ivo Gregurevic

Jakov: Boris Buzancic

Running time -- 91 minutes

No MPAA rating...