Don't let the low marks take you away from this masterpiece - look at stars assignment, and you will get the picture.
If you expect black and white war movie, forget it. For me, this is by far most objective movie about civil war(s) in ex-Yugoslavia, better then Bosnian (good) "No man's land" and Macedonian (masterpiece) "Before the rain". At the beginning, you will see Serbs burning villages (that explain title of movie) and killing people, but, from middle to end, you will see completely same behavior done by Bosnian Muslims. Brilliance of this movie is because it shows you why this war was so bloody and why it is so hard to have peace and reconciliation after all. Every killing, every murder, has story behind, and movie gather them all. You have pure communist (Bata Zivojinovic) against his fellow officer, you have two best friends (Nikola Bjelogrlic - Bosnian Serb, Nikola Pejakovic - Bosnian Muslim) against each other, you have urban freaks, you have junkies, you have educated teacher, you have everything you need. Every one of them has his own reason to be there, but at the end, they all end completely empty, with only pure hate inside.
I suppose that some things from movie will be hard to get if you are not from Balkan. For example, Index (that's name of the bend) song that Nikola Kojo sing using gun as mice, was one of the greatest classics in ex-Yu (and lyrics fit the scene perfectly: "And tonight, if she listen, let her hear the pain..."). Some sentences are very hard to translate. For example, in joke scene, when Zoran Cvijanovic (junkie) want to insult Bosnian Muslim soldiers, he tell them joke that begins with "Check this out: Blonde, I mean Fata the Blonde, come to party..." Fata is Muslim name, but is obvious that joke was first intended as joke abound blonde woman, but he upgraded it in the moment. Also, in one scene you can see Serbian skinheads that are kicking traffic table with "Zagreb" (Croatian capital) written on it. Two are holding the table, one is hitting it by the head, and they are all singing "We f*cked Tajci! We f*cked Tajci!" Tajci was ex-Yu singer from Croatia that represented country on Eurovision competition few years before war started. Also, most of the scenes are extremely dark and funny at the same time, but that's Serbian humor in general.
Even without this small hints, movie still remain pure classic, to me comparable only with "Apocalypse now" and "Platoon" by its objectivity. It is very fast movie, easy to watch and hard to understand, as Balkan always was. I hope you will enjoy.
If you expect black and white war movie, forget it. For me, this is by far most objective movie about civil war(s) in ex-Yugoslavia, better then Bosnian (good) "No man's land" and Macedonian (masterpiece) "Before the rain". At the beginning, you will see Serbs burning villages (that explain title of movie) and killing people, but, from middle to end, you will see completely same behavior done by Bosnian Muslims. Brilliance of this movie is because it shows you why this war was so bloody and why it is so hard to have peace and reconciliation after all. Every killing, every murder, has story behind, and movie gather them all. You have pure communist (Bata Zivojinovic) against his fellow officer, you have two best friends (Nikola Bjelogrlic - Bosnian Serb, Nikola Pejakovic - Bosnian Muslim) against each other, you have urban freaks, you have junkies, you have educated teacher, you have everything you need. Every one of them has his own reason to be there, but at the end, they all end completely empty, with only pure hate inside.
I suppose that some things from movie will be hard to get if you are not from Balkan. For example, Index (that's name of the bend) song that Nikola Kojo sing using gun as mice, was one of the greatest classics in ex-Yu (and lyrics fit the scene perfectly: "And tonight, if she listen, let her hear the pain..."). Some sentences are very hard to translate. For example, in joke scene, when Zoran Cvijanovic (junkie) want to insult Bosnian Muslim soldiers, he tell them joke that begins with "Check this out: Blonde, I mean Fata the Blonde, come to party..." Fata is Muslim name, but is obvious that joke was first intended as joke abound blonde woman, but he upgraded it in the moment. Also, in one scene you can see Serbian skinheads that are kicking traffic table with "Zagreb" (Croatian capital) written on it. Two are holding the table, one is hitting it by the head, and they are all singing "We f*cked Tajci! We f*cked Tajci!" Tajci was ex-Yu singer from Croatia that represented country on Eurovision competition few years before war started. Also, most of the scenes are extremely dark and funny at the same time, but that's Serbian humor in general.
Even without this small hints, movie still remain pure classic, to me comparable only with "Apocalypse now" and "Platoon" by its objectivity. It is very fast movie, easy to watch and hard to understand, as Balkan always was. I hope you will enjoy.