review the first steps of Kusturica

Critique Drama by Emir Kusturica, with Moreno D’e Bartolli, Predrag “Miki” Manojlovic, Mirjana Karanovic (1985, Yugoslavia, 2h16). Re-released in theaters on October 2 ★★★★☆

Surprise Palm d’Or of 1985, Emir Kusturica’s second film surely reminded the president of the Cannes jury, Milos Forman, of his own beginnings: the humor and thirst for life with which the daily drama within a communist dictatorship are not far from “Loves of a Blonde” or “Fire, Firefighters!” “. Sarajevo, 1950. President Tito has just broken with the Stalinist line. Malik, 6 years old, is preparing to be circumcised according to the Muslim ritual. A fan of the national football team on the rise, he dreams of a real ball, falls in love with his little neighbor, who is seriously ill, and sees his father, loving but fickle, disappear overnight.

“Gone on a business trip” according to his mother; in fact, sentenced to forced labor for a joke reported by his mistress to his apparatchik brother-in-law. Malik, from then on, becomes sleepwalker. The great story seen through the eyes of a child and through the prism of the family, the rustic inconsistency of men, drunk with sex and alcohol, the painful solidity of women, the music which unites in adversity… The Kustu universe is already here. Not yet his punk fury and his poetic madness of Fellini from the Balkans which will take “Le Temps des Gypsies” and “Underground” (his second Palme d’Or) even higher.