User reviews

Life is really a miracle, or rather some miracles. And one of them is to realize that at least one director, despite of the lack of ideas, capabilities, culture and courage nowadays creeping through the modern cinema background, can still shoot such wonderful masterpieces. Kusturica perfectly draws scenes and characters, plays with music and animals, skilfully weaves the plot and cover the whole lenght of the movie with something magic that only a Jugoslavian can create. This is film obviously shows also a dramatic and harsh reality, but always relieved by a light-hearted approach to life.

I do not really understand how can someone assert that this movie is a copy or a repetition of previous Kusturica's ones. Should have any sense, for example, a critic to the great Kurosawa because some of his genial masterpieces are similar one another or since they deal always with samurai's stories?

This is the best Kusturica's film i have seen. I was very pleased and smiling when i got out of the cinema. It's is very nice to watch that, being always himself, the director was able to improve his style and understand the most powerful elements of each of his previous films, so this time he mixed the lightness and joy of "Crna macka, beli macor" (black cat white cat) with the seriousness and dramatic feelings of "underground".. plus a romance, which is truly explored for the first time in a Kusturica's film, and with high sensitivity i must say.

So, in this one the scenery is a typical Black cat, a almost wild village near the serbia - bosnia border, where a railroad is being built, in the middle of a feeling of pre war. Here we find the main character, this humble man with a (devily insane) wife and a son. Things move forward and he looses both when she escapes with some Hungarian and he goes to war where becomes a prisoner. Than we have the last important character showing up, Sabaha (performed by a dazzling Natasa Solak, truly beautiful). Around this context Kusturica builds a very intense psychological diary of the man, who has constantly to decide whether to save his son or stay with his love (you'll understand how when you get to watch the film), as well as to deal with his returning wife vs his new lover. Better to observe that in the film than to talk about it. Apart from that you get a lot of Kusturica elements and typical way of making laugh, such as through a mule who is constantly trying to commit suicide in the railroads or the fantastic scene in the football game. In opposition to this you have this scene where Luka (main character) desperately grabs his son foot ball and cries over it. Powerful. Mixing the beautiful Balcan's landscapes and the ambiguous, but typical and enjoyable "no smoking" soundtrack and never loosing the posture of portraying ex yugoslavia social environment (like in the references to Tito, ex dictator of the balcans), kusturica creates this romantic but also dramatic comedy, which is the most difficult thing to put in films, as far as i observe. You have in this one that strange laughing/crying effect you find in for instance La Vita e bella or in most of Chaplin's movies. You spend the movie laughing but suddenly you feel very sad, and disturbed and understand you saw something sensitive and great...

From time to time pace gets to slow and if the film was 15 min shorter it wouldn't be worst. Apart from that it's a powerful European creation. It's Kusturica for sure. 8/10

Life is a miracle-a great title for a great movie

Kusturica has the talent to give us a film that will make the saddest person smile and think to himself that life is really a miracle, while it lasts, and we should enjoy every second...the movie transports it's viewers to a typical Kusturica world, full of music and dreamy situations. He tries to show us that life is not written in a straight line, that the most unexpected events like falling in love in the most dreadful scenario (i.e. war) can happen when you least expect it.

A film that touches the human soul, that will make you cry as well as laugh... just like real life.

There is no film maker today to bring to screen the beauty and madness of the Balkans like Kusturica does. 'Life is a miracle' will be seen in time, I believe, as the ultimate film about the Bosnian war.

The main character Luka (played by Slavko Stimac) is a train engineer, building a railroad in a remote corner of Yugoslavia, near the Bosnian border. It's the end of the communist rule, and lingering ethnic conflicts start showing up and replace the patriarchal life. When war breaks, Luka's son will be drafted into the Serbian army and fall prisoner, while his wife runs out with a Hungarian singer. The conflict around that he tried to ignore by work, partying and booze invades his life. And still salvation is out there, the day a beautiful Bosnian prisoner (yet a neighbor of yesterday) shows up Luka will build a plan to make an exchange of prisoners between her and her son, but soon will fall in love.

Kusturica succeeds to paint in naive painters colors a world that slowly slides from normality into madness, where neighbors become enemies, and violence the rule. He is funny and exuberant, but his humor is the humor of the fool of the village, and his exuberance is the exuberance of desperation. As in many great movies it is love that redeems and brings back human feelings to where they should be. Kusturica builds a world of characters who are tragic and funny, colorful and overall avid to live a life despite of the vicissitudes of history.

Wonderful.

I think this movie won't surprise anyone who has already seen another movie by this great film-maker: it is the same place (Blakans) and style as we are used to. If you liked his other movies, you will surely like this one too.

The story develops around a small bosnian village, where the lives of his inhabitants are changed by the war that shattered Bosnia 12 years ago. So far nothing extraordinary, but what makes his movies different are the atmosphere and life that springs out of every image.

There are two levels at which you can perceive this movie: the first is the rational level: the story, the gags (as in all his movies, humor has a central part) and so on. The second might be called irrational, because it has to do with identification and feelings: you are taken out of your seat and are part of what happens on the screen. Drama is placed very closely to comedy, and sometimes the change is so sudden your laughs freeze on your face. This I guess is the landmark of this movie: dramatic scenes build upon, and increase their strength from, funny scenes. After all, nothing can be taken seriously in the Balkans :-)

I won't say too much about the story, partly because I don't want to spoil your fun, partly because I feel it's unimportant. Suffice to say that the war is presented only by its "reflection" in peoples lives -- this is what matters most in Kusturica's view. There are no battle scenes.

I think the only thing I can reproach is that once or twice I felt the gags were exaggerated, a bit unnatural. But all Kusturica's movies have a dose of fantastic, so this is not a real problem.

I cannot end without pointing out the great performance of the lead actor, Slavko Stimac (Luka). All in all, I would strongly recommend this movie.

It's a best movie I have seen during the last few years. After the film I had feeling that Hollywood is just a factory producing cheep colored jewelry. The film is a drama with happy end. In this movie you can find real feelings, real values. There is described the philosophy of war, how stupid and silly it can be. Kusturica's humor is sharp and true. The most funny for me in this film was a place with international "peacekeeping" organizations , there "role" in solving of conflicts, "saving" people. In fact the author shows how useless and inadequate are those organizations in such cases. Kusturica is a great as usual and the soundtrack like in all his films too.

Kusturica repeats himself, it's the first thing that comes to mind when leaving the cinema. Still, this is not necessarily a negative sign, for an author who has been able to create "Underground" or "Black cat, white cat". This movie is an authentic hymn of joy to life, love and humanity (sure, also that grotesque humanity that in the Balkan countries may look wild sometimes), thus we can be happy that Kusturica has achieved once again this objective. In addition, Kusturica stress here in an unusual way for him the real power of sentiment between two persons which can overcome war and ethnic division.

However, the instruments that Kusturica uses are this time too familiar for us and we cannot avoid the impression of the repetition of the same gags and expressions that we have seen in his previous films. This "déjà vu" becomes impressed in our minds since the beginning, just after the magnificent aperture of the movie. A "déjà vu" which allows us to anticipate the gestures of the each character. In addition, the carnaval does not allow to catch the important political assumption of this movie, which is that that war was a war instigated by all illegal dealers on both sides to preserve and increase their traffics and that first of all the fights happened within each camp, to eliminate those who were promoting a fair and decent life (see the murder of the Serbian mayor by his Serbian deputy). This political assumption is one of the strongest elements of the movie, but is Kusturica's carnaval reinforcing or diluting this powerful message?

I believe that Kusturica is now come to a real crossroad: either he continues to follow his colorful and sometimes grotesque representation of the Balkan soul and in this way simply repeating himself or is he addressing new territories with different instruments. This movie represents some old and some new for him: this is its strength and its weakness. I hope to see Kusturica taking the challenge and using his immense creativity to enter into a new dimension.

Emir Kuturica offers us an incredibly alive cast and a gripping journey to experiencing the whole gamma of saturated human emotions. Whether at peaceful life or at war, sharing joy of being with friends or bitter taste of parting, the characters in the film are given a fascinating ability to see beauty in every moment of their life. They are bright personalities, they are full of dignity, they are honest and direct in their feelings, and they experience life to the full. Lively motion of camera & beautiful sceneries bring the final touch. A remarkably colourful film. Highly recommend to everybody who is into really good cinema.

But a good one anyway. Director Kusturica has already accustomed us with his caricatural way of telling stories occurring in several parts of former Yugoslavia presenting their characters as burlesque. He doesn't ridicule them, however. In fact he shows love and even some tenderness for them. He simply doesn't take life seriously and plays in a first class way with war, ethnic conflict, love and so on. But sentiment and emotion are not altogether absent of this movie. Behind the humorous scenes we can feel the depth of love that arises between the Serbian railway engineer and his supposed prisoner Muslim girl that he intends to exchange for his son who was captured by the Bosnian army during the Bosnian war of 1992. Some of the love scenes are full of humour but also of poetry and even fantasy like when their bed flies over the fields of Bosnia in some kind of dream. The first part of the movie is a quick succession of funny incidents and accidents. When the love story begins in the second part its pace is a bit more calm without losing completely its rapid rhythm. It's a movie that puts you on a happy frame of mind and don't forget the important role of the she-donkey which will make you laugh at several scenes. In the end the animal performs even an important part in the issue of the story that without its intervention would probably have a sad outcome.

Talented forward Milos Djukic dreams of playing for Partizan Belgrado. But his dream shatters when the war between the Serbians and Bosnians escalates. He gets drafted by the Serbian army and must report for duty. Disaster strikes when he gets captures. The only way to free him is to trade him for a Bosnian nurse who's held captive at his fathers house.

The least i can say about this movie is that is surprised me. Surprised by its drama, comedy, romance, absurdity.. Yes, this movie has it all. It combines all genres in a terrific mixture which interested me from the beginning until the end. Which is not an easy thing to do considering that this movie lasts two and a half hours. It gets along quite smoothly without real twists in the plot or having to accelerate 'cause there isn't a real climax this movie strives to (accept the obvious one, but thats not what this movie is really about).

Don't expect to get blown away by this picture, it wont knock your socks off. It'll give you a nice, subtle, smooth ride for your money.

8/10

Emir Kusturica has let his warm fuzzy side have the upper hand a bit too often in this one. The title is a dead giveaway: "La vie est un miracle/Life is a Miracle" is by turns whimsical, fey and heartwarming, so much so at times that one wants to reach for the insulin. The dark moments, and there are several (this IS Kusturica and it IS set in Bosnia, after all), come to feel like set-ups for more cloying sweetness - each time something truly awful seems to happen or be about to happen to one of the characters, the director chickens out with a "just kidding" scene. Nor is the story entirely convincing. Too bad - the actors are appealing and do a good job, and the Bosnian locations are gorgeous.

There is nothing worse than a talented filmmaker that is trapped inside is own creation. Emir Kusturica is one of those cases. He reinvented the way comedy is done, he showed the world a new approach on making movies. But now... what once was funny, now is stupid, what once was powerful, now is ridiculous, what once was deep, meaningfull but yet entertaining, now is just superficial and cheap laughs. The man that brought us movies like Underground is now reduced to a pale, shallow imitation of himself. Even the music suffers. The brilliance of Goran Bregovic is now replaced with a boring repetitive tune that plays on and on through the entire film. If you're a die hard fan of Kusturica's movies go ahead, but for everyone else, please stick to the good old ones.

For those who have already seen other Kusturica movies, this one will clearly be seen as a further step in the evolution of a great director. Some of his trademark ingredients are there: the basic carnal pleasures of life, the tragicomic Balkan-style eating/drinking/making love, his deep dislike for war and for any type of inter-ethnic strife, his heartfelt contempt for international organisations which did not prevent the massacres in former Yugoslavia, his entirely non-PC men and women characters, his optimism. These are recurring layers of his Balkan moussaka, but perhaps more are being added, as his optimism appears now turning into a nearly messianic faith that eventually, by helping each other, things will be as good as they can (though not impossibly so, as in Hollywood...).

It is not something one might rationally believe, but it is enchanting nonetheless.

Ultimately this is a movie about human hope, unpolluted by religious nonsense. There lays its real value.

A typical energetic work from Emir Kusturica who allures us into his bizarre world inhabited with eccentric and weird human beings. Characters as they are exposed to us seem quite unnatural but as the movie gradually absorbs one gets used to and cares about them. Kusturica harmoniously blends comedy with drama and the result is an enjoyable and entertaining movie despite being built on a dramatic theme. The landscapes in the movie are breathtaking and an offbeat music has always been an integral part in Kusturica's works. Some elements might seem repetitive from his previous movies but I would rather infer those elements as a stamp of a genius. The only thing that almost spoils a delightful experience is an actress portraying Luca's wife. I could not swallow her annoying grimaces no matter how hard I tried. Her scenes apart, the movie is a pleasure to watch.

Well, I saw this one today and I quite enjoyed it. It's "more of the same", no doubt about it, but, in this case, more is good. The story is pretty simple and has been explained to death, so I will refrain from telling it, but I'd like to confirm: yes, it has everything. Donkeys, railroads, the war, geese, midgets and music. The impossible love in the rough backdrop. Everything that is so dear to Kusturica appears in this film. It's not a masterpiece, it's pretty below Black Cat, White Car or Arizona Dream (his two masterpieces, IMHO), but it's an enjoyable film and one that will endure in your minds.

8/10

I happen to have (in this case) a privilege of living in Serbia. I have just seen a series "Zivot je cudo". Five 45min. episodes of Kusturica's glorious achievement. Many scenes were cut out so that the film could fit into 155min. cinema edition . . .

After seeing this movie twice (once in cinema, and second time on DVD) the whole series was a major surprise.

Both first, and second time movie made me laugh to tears, and then cry some again when I saw what happened later. In series, this was double. Scenes after opening the railroad when they are all on train and ruining of Luka's life begins for example, a very stress part when Luka foresees his wife's intentions with Hungarian. Filipovic's lies and promises to Luka . . . The part when Milos gets captured by Muslims . . . When Aleksic shows confidential data to Luke where Filipovic and Toma Krtolina are exposed as domestic betrayers working for several foreign agencies . . .

Series opened my eyes again, and I recommend it more than film, if you are able to, see this, you won't regret it.

After finishing watching the movie my friend said to me: do you realize that we just watched over 2 hours of video about nothing. The movie is basically escapist: showing reality in makeup and looking like whore, very much like Hollywood movies. The main character is "very good person", faithful husband and a father and cares about people (through building railroads). So how do put this man in a romantic extra-marrital affair without damaging that ultra-good view of him? Well, you make his neurotic wife run away with somebody else, and then make him get mad when the girl puts on his wifes clothing and only later give in to his feelings. Really, a true story of devotion to family values and decency (makes me sick). The whole movie is also very zany, with childish humor (like teletubbies). And to make it powerful in the end there's the whole dramatic separated lovers story. So what you get is a movie about life before and during war, where nobody dies, main character has a romance, full of slapstick humor. How's this related to anything real. I see it only as a sickening reality-obscuring movie.

I do not understand any of the languages used in the film. No sub-titling. I didn't get the full story. It still was a joy to watch because of everything being unexpected and surprising. Is the film a caricature of life? It certainly is. It pulls our legs. Shows us the mirror. I am certain that Salvador Dali and Frederico Fellini would have enjoyed this film very much. Charlie Chaplin too? I think so. For someone who does not understand the language the film may be a bit long. However, it is absolutely impossible to stop the video player. The next surprise is just around the corner. The film made me think a bit of the Dutch movie "The Pointsman" (de wisselwachter). "Life is a Miracle" has more intensity, though.

Once again, this is the sort of movies that couldn't have been made by anyone other than Kusturica.

The way he turned chaos into a carnival, apparently to trivialise the whole mess that was actually plaguing on in the war-torn Balkan state but indeed to embody the utter frustration never fails to amuse and spark off chains of dark humour. The way people tried to carry on their everyday life of cooking, sleeping, playing chess, making love, etc...with bombs exploding literally next door was so successful in boosting up the utmost sarcasm and satire of people's helplessness and bitter acceptance of war and death as an inseparable part of their lives. As is "When father's away on business", this apparently lyrical and musical comedy can't do much to hide the dark sides underneath. But as usual, Kusturica is also trying to bring the the same message - in the most horrific of times, there is still something called love for people to cling to and seek shelter under after all.

"With pain, sorrow and joy, we shall remember our country as we tell our children stories that start like fairytales. Once upon a time there was a country...'"

These lines closed the curtain on "Underground", Kusturica's most achieved movie about an 'unachieved' history. Indeed, "close" isn't even an appropriate verb to use since "the story had no end" whatsoever. But it was a bittersweet way to insist on Yugoslavia not being dead because it stopped belonging to current maps. The country, as a memory rather than a flag, would live as long as there would be great stories and that doesn't go without great storytellers.

So I open this review with the following statement: Emir Kusturica is certainly the most important Balkans' figure after Tito, and it's only because of the former's historical aura. I don't think any other politician, athlete, artist, celebrity no matter how preeminent and successful they were, would leave as an indelible mark in the legacy of this fascinating and tragedy-stricken land as Kusturica did, counterbalancing all the negativity brought by the news and the images conveyed by NATO or UN representatives.

Many of us have grown indeed with the images of the Balkans as a doomed placed with soldiers, refugees, barricades, burnings houses. I came to age in the early 90's and along with Israel and Palestine, Bosnia, Serbia and Croatia were 'routine' news as far back as I can remember. But as if Kusturica was aware of that reducing cliché, he gratifies us with a small but significant scene that sums up the way the proud Oriental feels about the Occidental vision. Luka, the film's protagonist, played by Slavco Stimac, an engineer working in a railway station in the Serbian mountains, is tired of hearing the same CNN-like news every day about the conflict, so he throws the TV on the railway, the news go on so he must resort to shooting the screen.

Maybe engrossed by blind patriotism, Luka was oblivious to the inevitability of war, his mind focused on his son Milos, a wannabe football player dreaming to join the Belgrade team, and to a lesser degree his mentally unstable wife Jadranka, graced with the kind of voice that shouldn't get too close to someone who wears glasses. Not totally optimistic, Luka didn't overestimate people, he overestimated the country. Stimac had played the naïve brother with a stammer in "Underground" and who discovered with shock as an old man that Yugoslavia ceased to exist. So the film works like a chronological continuation to "Underground" but with a Kusturica who took some time to digest the war's aftermath and the ill-reception of his Golden Palm winner.

It took Kusturica almost ten years to get back to the war. Meanwhile he concocted a zany comedy "Black Cat, White Cat" like an elixir to expire all the demons that could have poisoned his inspiration. And while I expected more drama in "Life is a Miracle" I was glad to find myself in familiar territories again with colorful characters, enjoying life and ignoring war even when it strikes them in the face. And I mean that literally. In fact, all the people in the film have one thing in common, they don't care about war: a man is worried for his son's future, his opera-singing wife flirts with his coach for the same reason, the son isn't too eager to play with guns, and seeing how the soldiers handle bazookas, you wouldn't blame him. Even war profiteers only care for coke and human traffic.

"Life is a miracle" is set in a sort of twilight zone of surreal fantasy or a tragic circus à la Kusturica.. And like Barnum, Kusturica knows how to use animals as fully developed characters in his movies, it's the death of a turkey that seals the hero's coming-of-age start in "Time of the Gypsies", it's animal panic in the zoo that announce the German bombings, and the scene with the bears in "Miracle" echoes the incongruous elephant wandering on the street in "Underground" or the use of the black and the white cat as wedding witnesses. Animals are integral to the story and it's by seeing a chicken laying eggs that Luka's jovial friend says "life is a miracle", his encounter with the bears will play like a darker omen. In another scene, Jadranka is chatting on a phone, a cat and a dog fight for a pigeon, they have their priorities straight as if they were one step ahead of humans.

And this is where the mule plays as a magnificent Chekov's gun, the animal blocks the railway, standing there, with tears seemingly dropping from the eyes. According to his master, the mule's sad because the "sweetheart" won't come back. There's something fascinating in the way the animal foreshadows the coming romance and even its conclusion... because beyond everything the film, like all other Kusturica's films, it's a romance. Not any romance, but one à la "Romeo and Juliet" between Luka the Serbian and Sabaha (Natasa Tapuskovic), the Bosnian hostage kept in his house to be exchanged with his son taken as a war prisoner. Sabana becomes a light of hope for Luka and naturally, they get closer and closer. There comes a point where life finds a way. "Life is a miracle" indeed.

And the film is another occasion for dazzling and poetic imagery with the two couple literally flying over the land, belonging to no country anymore, simply to each other as if the bond of hearts can transcend any frontier. We knew that already after venturing in the realms of Emir's imagination, a world where marriages were the occasion for crazy celebrations, where glasses are broken and truths spoken, movies where even death couldn't conceal that lust for life and made the party end, whatever happened.

Whether it reflects a truth of the ex-Yugoslavian people or a fantasy in Emir's mind, the show had to go on... the Barnum way, the Shakespeare way... or the Fellini way.