Death of a Man in the Balkans

Describing the film as being composed of just one 80 minute shot taken by a web cam quality camera would be enough to switch off most people from wanting to see it. Yet Death of a Man in the Balkans is a totally original, ingenious, inventive and LOL hilarious movie.

An artist kills himself in front of his computer's web cam (which is switched on). A succession of people who enter the flat following the suicide, including neighbors,undertaker, police, pizza delivery man, are not aware that the camera is on and their behavior and comments, though very funny, also reflect their true characters. The direction and acting are exactly right and nothing is out of place. A small gem which is definitely worth seeking out.

A web cam, deliberately placed in the corner of a room by an anxious looking man, breaks the fourth wall and opens the black comedy Death of a Man in the Balkans. Cut to black, a gunshot, then cut back to the room only to reveal the body of the same man falling on the floor. Having heard the shot, his neighbours enter the scene, followed by an overly ardent funeral arranger, an estate agent, paramedics, policemen and, finally, a pizza delivery man. Their typically balkan behaviour is the cause for many humorous moments, each of them reacting in their own idiosyncratic way to the death of the man (who turns out to be a reclusive composer).

Unfortunately, the film does not really live up to its potential. I was drawn by the tags "serbian" and "comedy", as the combination of the two is usually a spectacular experience. This time, however, the dialogue and the situations lacked intensity, as if the author had not really dared to explore fully the depth of the characters. The web cam gimmick worked perfectly, the way the composer arranged some of the events due to take place after his death (such as ordering a pizza for the guests) was impressive as well. The others, the actual participants in the events should have been the faces of a farce, but they could never make us laugh out loud.

Death of a Man in the Balkans begins with a clearly distraught man turning on a web camera in his apartment. The screen goes black, we hear a gunshot, and we are returned to the point of view of the web camera where the man's body has fallen tantalizingly just out of view. There's a knock on the door, an ordinary looking man - his neighbour - walks in and sees the man's dead body.

So begins a series of farcical exits and entrances, including, but not limited to, neighbours, real estate agents, opportunistic funeral directors, paramedics, police, and amusingly, a pizza delivery man. Each offers their own, unguarded take on the suicide. His neighbours struggle to remember his name, but recall that he was a somewhat well-known composer, the paramedics and police are unenthusiastic and more concerned with their mobile phones than with the dead body. A real estate agent stoically tries to give a lady a tour of this apartment, despite the man's body gracing the living room floor. A pizza delivery man shows up. The composer had ordered it in advance for the assembled crowd.

All this is captured by a switched on web camera, which records unnoticed until the film's last few minutes. Thus the film is presented, convincingly, as one long unbroken shot unfolding in real time. Death of a Man in the Balkans is a funny, entertaining and original look at a man's death and various people's reactions to it. It may not be the best farce out there, but I left feeling satisfied by a film with a great premise, spot-on performances and some very funny dialogue.

This is a movie about a composer who kills himself in his apartment, and nosey neighbors (along with some expected and unexpected visitors) who, in their own different ways, cope with his death, and the situation they've been put in...

Considering this movie is made with a single-camera setup, on one set, it completely relies on actors' abilities to express themselves, which they manage to do very well. It succeeds in showing us the people's mentality here in Balkans.

Altogether, this is a decent movie, and if you like non mainstream movies, you should certainly take a look at it.