Fine mrtve djevojke

This is 'a story in a story movie'. A woman is telling a story from a few years ago to a policeman because her son is kidnapped. And that part of the movie - her story - is great. With 'crazy house' that she moved in, weird neighbours strange situations. I think that the movie would've been better if it had ended with that, without 'the present story'. I really don't see a reason for that kidnapping part. Maybe to extend the lenght of the movie (only 75 minutes), but that just lowered my opinion about this movie. So it's 8, but could have been 9 or even 10 (if it was 60 minutes:-)

What can I say about Croatian movies? They are terrible. 60% of them are about war and 30% sucks the big time. So I usually don't watch Croatian movies. This one stayed at my desk for 9 months and finally I watched it! All I can say that it is great. You don't need a lot of money to make a god movie. All you need is a good story and good ambient in the movie.

The movie is about 2 lesbian girls that move to live together. They find a place in part of Zagreb called Tresnjevka (I know that because I live in Zagreb). Problem with Tresnjevka was it was a workers part of town. Now it isn't, but it was before 50 years. So they find an apartment in a house. Problem with the house it that it has ghosts of her own. The landlord is a women that is conservative a manipulative person. It has a son that is under big influence of his mom. On one floor there is a soldier that has Vietnam syndrome and bit's his wife every day because she can give him a son. On one floor there is a hoer. In one floor there is a guy that is holding his dead wife in his apartment pretending that she is alive. And on the last floor is gynecologic.

Can you expect what can happen in catholic and conservative Country like Croatia?

This movie gets my 7/10. It's not a masterpiece, but it still is a very good movie and I would recommend anyone to see it. The topic of intolerance towards "other" sexualities has been dwelled on for a while, but this is somewhat of an unique perspective, since it comes from Croatia.

The story about two lesbians who fall victims of intolerance blends rather nicely with other generalized xenophobic or just plain "weird" traits of the local society. E.g. one of the characters beats his wife and seems to hate everything that's Serbian, so a separate story could probably be told about that family.

Acting is good, but not perfect. It seems to me that many Croatian actors act very conservatively (you have a feeling that they are uncomfortable swearing, or that they just came out of theater where they did Shakespeare). But, it doesn't ruin the movie, it's still very good.

I haven't seen any Croatian film made since the beginning of war. It's funny to see actors we used to know ten or fifteen years older now.

In this film I liked the production - camera, photography and editing are really professional - you wouldn't say it was made on Balkans. Acting is mostly OK as well.

On the other side, the directing and the story are pretty weak. Everything seems like one dark documentary (yes we know the Balkan really looks like that, and people are really like that). No artistic moments, no metaphors, whole story is explicitly presented, and I dislike this way of movie making. That's why the movie was boring to me, both the story and the way it will be told is predictable.

Though, film-making technique is really good and I guess Croatia can make some really good movies, this one is on the right way.

Fine mrtve djevojke or Fine Dead Girls is a really promising movie showing talent of a young director Dalibor Matanic. In some ways it is a very accurate picture of the Croatian society today. In the spotlight we see two girls (Olga Pakalovic and Nina Violic) that are looking not only for the apartment to live in, but also a place where they could lead their lives as they want to. People that they meet, and the events that occur are as dark as realistic. The palette of characters is very interesting, although I was very pleased with the performance of Inge Appelt who played the old woman. A fine dose of humor is very well mixed with scenes of brutality. Definitely a good movie that i would recommend to anyone.