Uma Amizade Tóxica

Ok we get it. 30 years ago Milcho Manchevski made a movie that made it to the oscars. It was dark and it was about the post war reality of the balkans. Fast forward 30 years in the present the Balkans and Macedonia has very much changed, evolved and we no longer live in some dark reality. Heck even when I was a kid I wasn't living in some dark reality. Why do we as Macedonians always have to follow this one line of storytelling which one person had success with? Even Manchevski with Before the Rain exaggerated the reality to express certain emotions that had to do with nostalgia and were connected to a certain storyline. I just wish that Macedonian creators start trusting their own creativity and even though this story is also dark understand that you can create different types of dark reality without having to misrepresent or copy some style which was successful in the past. We have some really amazing directors and actors in the area. And we have a damn awesome country too full of modern, upbeat and beautiful locations and towns! How's that for controversy!

The plot was extremely bleak and, at times, non-sensical. The movie literally had no final premise or ending. The acting was ok, but some of the scenes felt extremely forced.

However, the thing that pisses me off the most is the utter misrepresentation of how people live in Skopje, and I honestly can't understand what's the point of all of that. Maybe the director's delusions seeped into the screenplay... Maybe its a desperate attempt to go fishing for foreign symphaty... or maybe she might've figured out the right formula to showcase a movie on Netflix... Who knows?

Also, the kids I see around town don't have pickup trucks; instead, they're driving their daddy's black BMW and curiously enough, speak a language that is not my own, but they weren't in the movie, were they?

Typical Macedonian houshold, typical Macedonian public high school- a building that is falling apart, and unfortunately typical teen behavior across the world. But thank God is not a typical Macedonian movie about the Ottoman rule, or how poor country Macedonia is, or something about politics.

Great job Dina Duma and Ivanov for making something different and something worth watching.

First of all, I don't understand why they have to show Skopje as the capital of Macedonia in such a bad light. Maybe 2% of the city is like that.

Second of all somewhere at the middle of the movie I really thought maybe it could be worth the watch, but honestly this movie is trash.

Bad ending.

If I could give it a 0 I would, but unfortunately I can't, that's why I'm giving it a 1 star rating.

I was very happy to see a Macedonian movie on Netflix. I usually don't like watching Macedonian movies because they always seem to show some dark reality which is not really our reality. However, I decided to give this movie a chance because from the trailer it seemed interesting.

I liked the actors, I liked the camera work, maybe there were some long pauses and slow motion scenes that were unnecessary, but overall it was okay.

What I really hate about this movie is the representation of our life. I was studying in a public high school 10 years ago in Skopje - SUGS Orce Nikolov and my life had some similarities to Maja and Jana's. However everything that was represented along the way is nothing like what I've seen. I'll start with how the homes of the teenagers looked. The furniture is from the 60s, it looks like some ruins. There is some population in Skopje that lives like that, but that is very rarely. And in the movie all of the homes that were shown - the party and Jana's home especially look nothing like an average person's home in Skopje. Also, when I saw the cars, the school and the bus that were shown I thought that the plot was happening in the year 2000. Which was weird because they were using TikTok, so it was obviously 2021. I'm sure they must have especially looked for that bus from JSP for that scene, because in the last 10 years the buses don't look like that in Skopje.

I don't understand why Macedonian movies tend to represent the Macedonian society much worse then it is. Is it to get sympathy from other people who don't know us?

Also, I feel that the movie ended sudden and without an end. It would have been nice if we could have seen that there are consequences to Maja and Jana's actions or anything instead of finishing it in our heads. It seemed like there was no point...

This review is not to offend any of the crew that worked on the movie. I am very happy for their success and awards. However, this is so we can improve Macedonian movies and representation of Skopje in the future.