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Pretty Village, Pretty Flame

Pretty Village, Pretty Flame

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent movie....though not for the feint of heart
Review: There isn't much I could say that others haven't already. No single movie could ever hope to describe what happened in the Balkans. No mortal soul could for that matter. But the movie does surprisingly well in showing us the two most important lessons: what happens when neighbor turns against neighbor, and the insanity of it all. Some previous reviewers have said that this movie has a pro-Serb bias..I disagree entirely..And to those people, I would pose the question of what it would take to make them happy? Would another scene of Serbs burning Muslim houses make them happy? Or two scenes, or three?? Such statements are ridiculous.

This next bit is for the Yugoslavs out there...

Placem svaki put kad razmislim o tom svemu. Ako ste vi jedni od tih koji verujete da je vasa strana (Srpska, Muslimansa, ili Hrvatska) bila nevina, onda ste vi cisto budale. Ne zelim da vas uvredim, ali stanite malo i razmislite o tom svemu. Svi smo u tim prokletim ratovima izgubili. Dok smo bili zajedno bili smo jaki i nezavisni. A sad smo svi slabi i ponizeni. Ceo svet nam zapoveda sta da radimo, i kako da radimo, i Amerika i Evropa. Koriste nas za njihove licne igre...I ekonomske, i politicke, i socialne. Jedino su se Sloveni nekako srecom izvukli. Ali mi je drago, sto vidim da sa prolaskom godina ima ipak nekog oprostaja. Tek ovih dana mogu prici nekom nasem ovde u inostranstvu bez straha i bez tog pitanja..Odakle si?... I hvala bogu davno nisam cuo te reci Ustasa ili Cetnik od nasih..Samo na starim filmovima i na ustima stranaca. Ne moramo se ponovo sjedinjiti, al se MORAMO pomiriti. I ovaj film tome pomaze ja mislim.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Stunning!
Review: 'Pretty Village, Pretty Flame' is one of the most stunning films I've seen - and perhaps the greatest war/anti-war film of the 1990s. It's bleak, disturbing, gripping and moving (and also darkly humourous).

Before I saw 'Pretty Village, Pretty Flame', I knew little and understood little about the violent break-up of Yugoslavia - but ever since I was first mesmerised by the film 18 months ago, I can't stop reading about that conflict. That's how powerful 'Pretty Village, Pretty Flame' was for this viewer.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Homo hominis lupus est.
Review: - (...). This is a triumph of filmmaking (with zero budget) and writing, even though the translation is terrible.
- Pretty Village, Pretty Flame is not about who started what, when or how. It's about people caught up in the midst of something fundamentally senseless. It's about lost souls and desperation.
- This movie is heavy to watch and in my opinion one of the best war movies ever made. Second only to Roman Polanski's The Pianist. I highly recommend it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie
Review: Anyone interested in what started the war in Fromer Yugoslavia should see this movie.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great job, disproves all the anti-Serbian bigotry here
Review: Despite what the Muslim Victicrats (people who always make it look like they are the victims) say, that it was "genoice" and not a civil war, this movie shows just what the victicrats don't want people to know...and with the help of the American media, very few people actually know what really happened in Bosnia. The innocent Bosnian-Muslims, who by the way were funded by Al Qaeda during the war (Osama Bin Laden has Bosnian citezenship!), were all massacred systematically by the big bad evil Serbs...according to CNN. Give me a break. The Muslim Victicrats cry foul when they see this movie, but that's because it's one of the few non biased films (and of course they call it biased becuase it doesn't appease their anti Serbian hatred). It shows how despite the media lies, Serbs were very much victims in a bloody civil war in the former Yugoslavia. Anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish...bullets fly in both directions my friends. CNN just doesn't do the job...as much as the victicrats hope it does, the war went beyond CNN's lies...Serbs suffered most at the hand of Mujahedin terrorist Al Qaeda sponsored extremists and Croatian Neo-Nazis, and all this movie does is show that despite CNN/Christiane Amanpour lies (such as the Srebrenica "massacre"), Serbs did suffer greatly in the Yugoslav civil war. Cheers.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Why, Exactly, Does Anyone Like This Film?
Review: First, this film is grainy and jerky - a poor level of filmmaking at the most basic level.

Second, it is in too many respects imitative of what its makers think is trendy Western filmmaking. But rather than technique and cinematography making the film interesting, it just makes it incoherent. Kids/adults, friends/enemies, neighbors/murderers: no progressions, no consistency, nothing to put together.

Third, human life can't survive under the conditions the film portrays. There would not be any food to eat, water to drink, medical care or supplies, living women or children, habitation, functioning vehicles or fuel, weapons to use, or bullets to fire. All we are shown is continuing and total devastation. Sometime, someone has to brew the liquor they stay drunk upon, grow and cook the food they eat, build the structures they keep reducing to rubble etc. Sometime, someone has to get sober! Everyone isn't always on the firing line.

Fourth, it really isn't PRO anything or CON anything. It just wants to shock and disgust us. That being the case, I can't really like or dislike, agree or disagree with anything in it. There is not religion, love, healing, friendship, gentleness, morality, allegiance, kindness, or any other positive human quality. But I'd claim that SOME ontology - some subscription to value and meaning - is a requirement for a film to be worth watching. I mean, if something is ONLY sewage, ONLY vomit, it doesn't exactly maintain our interest very long. This film is a pretense that sewage and vomit are the total reality. But S & V only make sense in terms of larger realities of which they represent a small and temporary aberration.

All in all, a pretentious and second-rate film. While far from a perfect film about this area, a somewhat better one is SAVIOR.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Why, Exactly, Does Anyone Like This Film?
Review: First, this film is grainy and jerky - a poor level of filmmaking at the most basic level.

Second, it is in too many respects imitative of what its makers think is trendy Western filmmaking. But rather than technique and cinematography making the film interesting, it just makes it incoherent. Kids/adults, friends/enemies, neighbors/murderers: no progressions, no consistency, nothing to put together.

Third, human life can't survive under the conditions the film portrays. There would not be any food to eat, water to drink, medical care or supplies, living women or children, habitation, functioning vehicles or fuel, weapons to use, or bullets to fire. All we are shown is continuing and total devastation. Sometime, someone has to brew the liquor they stay drunk upon, grow and cook the food they eat, build the structures they keep reducing to rubble etc. Sometime, someone has to get sober! Everyone isn't always on the firing line.

Fourth, it really isn't PRO anything or CON anything. It just wants to shock and disgust us. That being the case, I can't really like or dislike, agree or disagree with anything in it. There is not religion, love, healing, friendship, gentleness, morality, allegiance, kindness, or any other positive human quality. But I'd claim that SOME ontology - some subscription to value and meaning - is a requirement for a film to be worth watching. I mean, if something is ONLY sewage, ONLY vomit, it doesn't exactly maintain our interest very long. This film is a pretense that sewage and vomit are the total reality. But S & V only make sense in terms of larger realities of which they represent a small and temporary aberration.

All in all, a pretentious and second-rate film. While far from a perfect film about this area, a somewhat better one is SAVIOR.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Raw data
Review: Genuine, depicting the sickening madness, whithout a cause; hospital scenes are particularly impressive. I fell from the seat loughing, but cried as well. How cuold this war ever have happened and be tolerated by the intelligent Yugoslavs. In the 2nd world war they fend off nazis, domestic traitors and said NO to a hoodlum named Stalin...why than this war???

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bosnian war has never looked so realistic
Review: Honestly "Pretty willage, pretty flame" is one of the best movies I ever saw. It shows the most realistic picture of war in Bosnia, than in most other Bosnian movies. It shows Serbian side of the war. The storytelling and the script itself is amazing, and so is the editing. This movie shows what life of the people on Balkans really is like. These people don't have a very happy life. Their life is very unstable and those people have been through everything. This whole movie is made in retrospective order. There are about five time periods. First time we really see what war was really like in Bosnia. This movie shows that there was more to what happen in Bosnia than just a war. This war was religious. Racial or religious wars are the worst. That's when one side rather destroy it's enemy's religious institution than a warehouse full of amunition. This never should have happened in heart of Europe. There's already enough natural diseasters, why would we want any more fatal attacks, especially from each other? There's an old latin saying "A man is a wolf to a man". Wars are one part of human life. Whether the reason is lack of space, food, or a religious intolerance. In this case, soldiers and common people weren't the reason why the war begun. No one wanted to be out on that fighting field and hold a gun in his hands while the bullets are flying all over the place. The people have been lied to, and the soldiers were like small figures of on a chess field. And those who really are the reason why it all begun, will never pay the price. Entire war in Bosnia was just a awful plan that got half carried out, and more and more blood was spilled on sacred Bosnian soil, like it did for centuries. It was all a big mistake that keeps repeating every 50-100 years throughout history. The worst part is, every other war is worst from the previous one. "The war brings out all good and bad things in people. What's the good thing?"

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bosnian war has never looked so realistic
Review: Honestly "Pretty willage, pretty flame" is one of the best movies I ever saw. It shows the most realistic picture of war in Bosnia, than in most other Bosnian movies. It shows Serbian side of the war. The storytelling and the script itself is amazing, and so is the editing. This movie shows what life of the people on Balkans really is like. These people don't have a very happy life. Their life is very unstable and those people have been through everything. This whole movie is made in retrospective order. There are about five time periods. First time we really see what war was really like in Bosnia. This movie shows that there was more to what happen in Bosnia than just a war. This war was religious. Racial or religious wars are the worst. That's when one side rather destroy it's enemy's religious institution than a warehouse full of amunition. This never should have happened in heart of Europe. There's already enough natural diseasters, why would we want any more fatal attacks, especially from each other? There's an old latin saying "A man is a wolf to a man". Wars are one part of human life. Whether the reason is lack of space, food, or a religious intolerance. In this case, soldiers and common people weren't the reason why the war begun. No one wanted to be out on that fighting field and hold a gun in his hands while the bullets are flying all over the place. The people have been lied to, and the soldiers were like small figures of on a chess field. And those who really are the reason why it all begun, will never pay the price. Entire war in Bosnia was just a awful plan that got half carried out, and more and more blood was spilled on sacred Bosnian soil, like it did for centuries. It was all a big mistake that keeps repeating every 50-100 years throughout history. The worst part is, every other war is worst from the previous one. "The war brings out all good and bad things in people. What's the good thing?"


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