Rating: Summary: Funny and Tragic Review: I am a serb/macedonian and I loved this movie because of the music(MESACHINA!) and the serbian comedy. It made me understand more about my countries history. To anyone who is wondering about seeing this movie , have no dought. Its such a wonderful movie.
Rating: Summary: Kusturica's masterpiece Review: I can now say that I really feel the tragedy of the the Yugoslav people. There are Serbs, Croats, Muslim Bosnians, and others, but some of them have pieces of all of them. They were called Yugoslavs, and for them, Underground is the story of the end of that country and culture. Not in 1992 or in the eighties, but when the first german bombs fell in 1941. That's exactly the start of Underground. The main reasons are also expressed: Nationalism of all ethnic groups and Communism. I hope that in real life all those nice characters come together at the end in a big party celebrating life, and that's when the tragedy of Yugoslavia will end.
Rating: Summary: A Surreal Comic political masterpiece Review: I am Croatian and quite familiar with the politics which underly Kusturica's invented History. Despite arguments that the movie is pro-Serb, I feel that this film reaches for the heart of the Serb perception of themselves as well as the world around them. It is an allegorical tale told with such visionary power and magnitude that it exists on its own terms as pure art, regardless of content. The film is worth viewing for the music alone. Frenzied, extravagant, violent and uproarious. I recommend this film to people to understand the visceral levels and dimensions within which the Serbian people view themselves. One cannot overgeneralize an entire culture, but much that is influential in Serb ideology is conveyed in this film.
Rating: Summary: Probably the best movie I have ever seen. Review: I took a chance on renting the lone import movie at our video store, and it was great. From the opening scene with the brass blaring great sounds, to the terrific ending. Definatly worth checking out...Could anyone that know serbo-croat. please let me know the list of songs on the soundtrack? The opening song anyhow... thanks
Rating: Summary: ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT!!! Review: When I first saw this movie on the indie channel, I taped it. I immediately watched it again, totally stunned by the extent of energy, imagination, ideas, images with which I was being blasted. Talk about a universal masterpiece! This movie should be required viewing on every screen, large & small in the US. We Americans lead such narrow sheltered lives; we are so eager to see things in black & white, to have our opinions dictated by columnists & newscasters. This movie should take off a few blinders. On the other hand, judging by some of the reviews here & in the US press, people will still opt for easy cartoon ideologies over the indisputable truth about the ferocious & predatory predilictions of all "sides" of humanity. Thank god for visionary humorists like Kusturica.
Rating: Summary: This film has become my homeland Review: I am a Bosnian refugee of mixed ethnic origin. Without any intention to be melodramatic, I have to say that the loss of my homeland was expressed so purely in Kusturica's film that it tore open old wounds and healed them at the same time. I used to dislike Kusturica's style; now I see how wrong I was.
Rating: Summary: Absolutely amazing workon this masterpeice Review: I am not a foreign movie buff, but this movie hit's every emotion and is directed brilliantly.
Rating: Summary: A superb Flann O'Brien-esque yarn of love, loss and politics Review: Brilliant! Like a Philip K Dick, Flann O'Brien or Michail Bulgakov novel come to life. Insightful commentary about the relationship between politics and the life of the individual. Moving from full-fledged slapstick to tear-jerk sentimentality in the same scene, simultaneously maintaining a cohesive whole, this movie has phenomenal direction and amazing performances.
Rating: Summary: The masterpiece film of an unprecedented cinematic genius Review: Funny how film reviews are so easily transformed into political battlegrounds...or is it tragic? The anonymous reviewer from California is not alone in his or her one-star grading. The New Yorker had also ruthlessly criticized the political implications of the film in its 1995 review of Underground, which is not surprising, given the anti-Serbian sentiments of the US since the early nineties (which have multiplied as a result of the long-ignored ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians taking place in Kosovo as we speak), but also the inability of many Americans to comprehend the complex history of Yugoslavia, both pre- and post-Tito. No matter how 'well-informed' one claims to be, and no matter if one's political opinions are valid, one simply cannot obliterate the value of a film for its political background. But all this talk about politics obscures what this film is really about. Underground is not a political film. It is utterly clear to one who sees the it for what it is, and not for what some would like to interpret it as, that this is the expression of the director's personal anguish that the fall of Yugoslavia brought upon his life. So I ask you, who is anonymous-California-person or any Mr/Ms USA who feels that they have the authority or the 'well-informedness' to silence, or even worse, to invalidate the voice of a man who feels he has something to mourn. Many Americans can go about their lives without ever having to face any political reality whatsoever (or have you forgotten that most Americans don't even vote?) let alone being told by some guy in a blue hat that yesterday you had a country and now you don't. The situation of Yugoslavia is a tragedy all around, and this film expresses with sincerity the universality of its horrors. For any reader who was led to believe by bad reviews (which incidentally are far outnumbered by the good ones) that this film was propagandistic in any way, please don't let it keep you from seeing it. Underground is not only one of the most artistically exquisite films ever made --it is also a genuine expression of hopelessness in a time of insanity.
Rating: Summary: Thumbs down for Underground Review: What is all the rave about? For those who still seek a non-existant complexity in the former Yugoslav wars, Underground may be just the delusion. Being a well-informed viewer, however, it strikes me as a poor apologia for the crimes that have occured in the Balkans. Moreover, the characters of Underground represent no one but Kusturica's nightmare vision of a Yugoslav past, present, and future. The film is exaggerated, without taste, and vulgar in all its representations.
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