MovieChat Forums > Zivot je cudo (2004) Discussion > Good movie, but it should have been shor...

Good movie, but it should have been shorter and a bit more serious

posted 16 years ago by fredbel6
1 reply | jump to latest

I liked this film, and I definitely think it's interesting to see a somewhat humorous approach, but I still think that a few things could have made it better :

- it's too long, it's like 132 minutes and for what?
Luka's wife is annoying and not necessary at all. I really hated about every scene with her in it : her dealings with the Hungarian singer, her behaviour at the soccer game,.... If Luka would have been a single parent who had lost Milos' mother before the war, things would have been simpler and his relationship with Shabaha would have made much more sense.

Other things like the bear attacks were unnecessary for me as well.

I really get the impression that the director didn't know how to start his film, because in the second half everything seems to be necessary and then I really got to know the Luka character.

- it's not serious enough
A movie shouldn't be serious all the time, and there are lots of amusing moments I liked (like with the donkey, or the cat and the dog)but sometimes it seemed inappropriate (especially the music!). Shabaha being willing to do mob the floor, to talk about stuff like his son,..that's all fine, but her trying to look good in all those dresses, knowing that she is still a captive, possibly even still risking rape, who had just seen two friends being killed off, just didn't do it for me...

What did you think?

[–] sevastokrator 16 years ago

I mostly agree with you, especially on the part that the movie would be far better (at least to me) if the first half were shorter and more serious. I wrote earlier that I started hating this film. But the second half when the war was most intense and the role of Sabaha was introduced, impressed me so much that I ended up liking the movie as a whole, even its ridiculous and unnecessary (again, only in my opinion) parts.

I only disagree with the notion that the opening scene with bear attacks was unnecessary, and I'll try to give an explanation. The scene is symbolic, because in those parts of Bosnia (as stated in the movie) there were no bears, and those who came, came from Croatia, running away from detonations, since the war has already begun there. War in Croatia began 1 year prior to that in Bosnia, and those bears are but symbols of war that is about to come. Especially since no one (except for Velja who saw them) sees nothing disturbing about them - the same way until the last minute, the peoples of Bosnia didn't believe the war would actually start, although it was all around them.

Also, notice that the best friend of Milosh (Luka's son) was a Muslim. He doesn't appear after the start of war has been introduced. What happened to him? Did he seek refuge in Muslim parts of Bosnia? Was he killed by Serbs at the start of the war? Did he fight in Bosnian-Serb army? The fates of many actual young men who disappeared during those horrible years of war are unknown even until today. May wars never happen again, and may all people be more like Luka and Sabaha are depicted in this movie.