Cribbing the Kusturica movies

Yes, in my humble opinion he is the genuine original. Interesting enough, for some he was a great and well reputed moviemaker until he made these political statements that were non-comfortable for some people. Then he became "not so good" director, in fact average. Well, I do not believe that something changed on his movies. Underground, Time For Gipsies or Black Cat White Cat were great movies and they still remained even after he expressed his own opinions. BTW, I know Fellini and Godard as well as lot of Russian and Polish film makers but I cannot agree with you. He was always original. This German chap is just a bloody wannabe clone.

Cant agree with that either. Im from an ex Yugoslavian republic as well and I know Kusta for a long time ... One can not state he is the "one and only original", since neorealism and poetic realism, which he usually engages in were present long before he even started ... Basicaly, he does the same thing as this german dude, he draws or exploits (pick one) an culture which is not his own (in his case the gypsy culture). He is not the only one doing this and you will see other gypsy films that can be of a great "resemblance" to Kusturica films. For example http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062277/ or http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076276/ ... In my opinion the film Tko to tamo pjeva (Who's Singin' Over There?) was the film which defined Kusturicas leter style ...

On the other hand if you take Kusturicas "non gypsy" films, like Sjećaš li se Dolly Bell? or Arizona Dream you will see that they lack the "Kusturica style" you are talking about ...

Conclusion, Kusturica is a great master of cinema, but stating that he is "the original" is a vast overstatement. And Absurdistan, no matter of his style or not is a great film in my opinion ...

Cheers