Pavle Vujisic Movies

The Yugoslavian When Father Was Away on Business (Otac na Sluzbenoh Putu) takes place in the early 1950s. The title is a euphemism: because of the strained relationship between Yugoslavia and the USSR, various private citizens have disappeared in the middle of the night, accompanied by the police. One such "vanishing" individual is Miki Manojlovic, the father of 6-year old Moreno D'E Bartolli, from whose viewpoint this story is told When Manojlovic, an employee in the labor ministry is whisked away to prison, his family reacts with pride, assuring one and all that he is "away on business" because of his fervent political beliefs. The sad truth: Manojlovic has ended up behind bars because of his sexual peccadilloes. The film details the tribulations of a fatherless family struggling to cope with the financial deprivations of Communism. Director Emir Kusturica won the Cannes Film Festival Golden Palm award for his work on When Father Was Away on Business. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In this amusing political satire, director Predrag Antonijevic parodies two hypocritical party chairmen in a small village, and by inference, the Yugoslavian political system on a broader scale. The first chairman of the people's council occupies his time rather dubiously -- by throwing grenades into a stream to kill off many fish at once (a well-known, illegal technique, usually done with dynamite). One day the chairman finds an unexploded bomb, and, in the process of trying to extract its gunpowder, he blows himself up and not the fish. Villagers ignore how he died, call him a hero, and name a school after him. The next party chairman is out for serious reform and begins a campaign to awaken the peasants to class consciousness -- and in turn, dies an ignominious death. Once more, the villagers laud their dearly departed chairman in terms that none could really believe, and life goes on as they wait for the next chairman to take up whatever erratic, illegal, or extreme behavior he prefers. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this drama, a Yugoslavian native leaves the US and returns home after a 20-year absence. Back in his home fishing village, he begins caring for his grandchildren so their parents can go to West Germany and work. The grandfather makes the children work very hard, despite the fact that a local teacher begs him to ease up on the boy so he can attend school. The grandfather eventually dies, but by that time, the children have become determined to keep caring for the farm. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sometimes handling the dead can be almost as difficult as handling the living, according to the Topalovic family and its many members -- from great-grandparents on down. They are losing ground in the fight to keep their cemetery business from going under and have had to make a clandestine alliance with n'er-do-well entrepreneurs that will supply them with recycled coffins at a cheap price -- an alliance that has kept the family in heavy debt to the grave-digging crooks. Meanwhile, young Mirko Topalovic has fallen in love with the daughter of one of the increasingly wealthy partners in the used coffin business. She works for a movie theater as a pianist (it is the era when silents are on the way out) and the owner of the theater has not yet fired her and switched to talkies because he wants her for himself. He suggests that they make a movie together -- an erotic movie he thinks to himself -- but seduction is his only goal. When Mirko starts to help out in this movie project, he comes to realize what is actually going on and overpowered by rage, he kills the woman and the theater owner. Puffed up with his aggressive deed, he goes home to convince the Topalovic family that they have to take up arms against the usurious grave-diggers -- and a wild and bloody melée ensues that will determine the fate of the family. Jelisaveta Sablic won the "Best Actress" award at the 1982 Pula Film Festival for her role as the sought-after female lead in this film. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

When a young man joins the Yugoslavian Air Force as a test pilot he has several strikes against him, in spite of his love of flying: his father was a pilot who died in a crash caused by a storm, his mother does not want him to fly, and his girlfriend (a ballerina) is not exactly enthusiastic about his chosen profession. The fellow is caught in a storm himself one day, and as his mother and girlfriend wait anxiously on the ground for news of his flight, he is fighting the storm and trying his best to land safely, all the while remembering how his father had died. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Filmed in Yugoslavia, Do You Remember Dolly Bell? is set in the Sarajevo of the mid-1960s. When the government begins relaxing its hold on individual rights, many citizens don't quite know how to handle their sudden freedom. The film concentrates on the effect an onslaught of Western culture (movies, music, clothing, creature comforts) has on a previously "sheltered" group of young Slavs. The main characters also adapt to the Sexual Revolution in a series of romantic (and lightly censorable) setpieces. Originally released in 1981, Do You Remember Dolly Bell won the Golden Lion award for Best First Film at the Venice Film Festival, the first of several such honors for its director, Emir Kusturica. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In his old age, a man looks back on his life as an anti-fascist partisan during the Second World War. The losses he suffered then are still painful to him, as are his memories of the atrocities committed by otherwise decent people. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

This is an uneven and slow-paced drama with a good performance by lead Slobodan Perovic as a lonely, arrogant doctor. The doctor lives in a Russian village far off the beaten path of civilization. He prefers hanging out by himself in his home, in his office, or on the way to either place. He also takes pensive strolls through the nearby woods. Sometimes a little girl goes with him on the nature treks, but otherwise the doctor is left to his own thoughts, without companionship. The upshot is that his life is pretty boring. Then he meets a political prisoner in a mental institution and as they converse, the doctor begins to have serious doubts about the kind of life he has been living. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

This slice-of-life story of an amoral drifter is an unusual product for the Yugoslavian film industry of its day, and it features a catchy title song. Having been imprisoned as a result of drug peddling, Mika manages to escape from a prison train and hooks up with a man who does horse-riding tricks in small-town fairgrounds. When she spies the police on her trail, she hitches a ride into Belgrade with a boy on a motorcycle. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In this gentle comedy, an adolescent boy manages (largely by accident) to remain virginal. Despite his unravaged condition, he is increasingly awake to the erotic possibilities which surround him, even though he is not yet prepared to take advantage of them. He has had his eye on the stock-girl at the grocery store he works in, and a neighbor-lady thinks he might have a crush on her because he left some flowers on her doorstep. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

In the Middle Ages, the conditions endured by peasants and serfs were in some ways worse than those endured by slaves, and periodically there were peasant uprisings. Very few of these were even slightly successful. This Yugoslav film chronicles such an uprising in Croatia and Slovenia in 1573, under the leadership of Matija Gubec. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide