All of Slovenia once cheered for Ludvik Zadjk(Peter Musevski), a former motocross champ, who relies on nostalgia as an egotistical remedy for the torment that all celebrated athletes experience after their moment in the limelight passes. The latest chapter in Ludvik's story is an ongoing one that often finds the chain-smoking trucker behind the wheel, staring down on a highway strip, with a cargo of live bodies he smuggles into Italy for profit and unethical fringe benefits, in the dead of night. Joining Ludvik, on his maiden voyage into this nebulous world of human trafficking is Rudi(Aljosa Kovacik), a speedway groupie who probably took the job so he could be close to his childhood hero, and also impressing himself upon another groupie named Angela(Aleksandra Balmazovic) by his close association with a racing legend such as Ludvik, somebody she'd know about. "Rezervni deli" contains all the ingredients for a sports film about a young and eager up-and-comer's mentoring under a fading champ, whose careful grooming and unwavering devotion towards his pupil leads the boy to triumphant victory. But that scenario is impossible, not in a country like Slovenia; not in a city with a nuclear reactor, and not with a narcissistic man such as Ludvik, who repeatedly refers to himself in the third-person. The Krsko native teaches Rudi to cross a line, alright, but it's certainly not a victory line.
The cost of safe passage for your run-o-the-mill emigrant is one-thousand Euros, but the price goes up if the illegal has a pretty face and pliable body. A woman like Ilinka(Verika Nedska), the penniless Macedonian who fits the bill on both accounts, is brought back to the safe house where Ludvik and his associates take full advantage of her poverty, and forces her to barter sex for an antibiotic that her husband needs for survival. While this egregious breech of professionality takes place, Rudi is out buying pizzas. With pepperoni-topped pies in tow, Ludvik encourages his new partner(-in-crime) to help Ilinka earn some money, as if he has her best interests in mind. The lechery of Ludvik and his friends is concealed through the modulation of their seemingly genuine unawareness. Even though Rudi keeps his pants on, he's still guilty of complicity, or rather, the film's complicity to make both men sympathetic to the audience. Shunned by the husband after her forced debauchery, Ilinka is later found dead at the bottom of a cliff; a likely suicide that's reported over the television airwaves as Rudy conveniently sleeps. The filmmaker has a specific reason for never allowing the Macedonian girl's death be made known to either Ludvik or Rudi.
Ludvik's wife died from cancer. Ludvik will go out the same way. The filmmaker invests his morally compromised protagonist with a terminal disease as a shortcut, because it would take more than eighty-four minutes to counterbalance this man's considerable sins. This unearned heroism does nothing to excuse the rapes and the countless people he leaves to their own devices in Italy. "Rezervni deli" gets its name from the butchers who harvest organs for the black market. We're not expected to suddenly like this man just because he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, are we? Yes, we are. That's what "Rezervni deli" has been programmed to do. The fatal disease is supposed to elicit unconditional sympathy from its audience.
During his farewell run, Ludvik refunds a young mother after somebody alerts him about her lifeless baby. If Ludvik knew about the Macedonian girl, this goodwill act would play like knee-jerk repentance, a last ditch effort to redeem himself in god's eyes. But since he's unaware about her self-inflicted demise, we're supposed to forgive his past transgression, because this act of charity is actually born out of Ludvik's innate goodness.
No.
"Rezervni deli" never persuaded me to revel in the humanity of a man who's partly responsible for a young woman's suicide.
The cost of safe passage for your run-o-the-mill emigrant is one-thousand Euros, but the price goes up if the illegal has a pretty face and pliable body. A woman like Ilinka(Verika Nedska), the penniless Macedonian who fits the bill on both accounts, is brought back to the safe house where Ludvik and his associates take full advantage of her poverty, and forces her to barter sex for an antibiotic that her husband needs for survival. While this egregious breech of professionality takes place, Rudi is out buying pizzas. With pepperoni-topped pies in tow, Ludvik encourages his new partner(-in-crime) to help Ilinka earn some money, as if he has her best interests in mind. The lechery of Ludvik and his friends is concealed through the modulation of their seemingly genuine unawareness. Even though Rudi keeps his pants on, he's still guilty of complicity, or rather, the film's complicity to make both men sympathetic to the audience. Shunned by the husband after her forced debauchery, Ilinka is later found dead at the bottom of a cliff; a likely suicide that's reported over the television airwaves as Rudy conveniently sleeps. The filmmaker has a specific reason for never allowing the Macedonian girl's death be made known to either Ludvik or Rudi.
Ludvik's wife died from cancer. Ludvik will go out the same way. The filmmaker invests his morally compromised protagonist with a terminal disease as a shortcut, because it would take more than eighty-four minutes to counterbalance this man's considerable sins. This unearned heroism does nothing to excuse the rapes and the countless people he leaves to their own devices in Italy. "Rezervni deli" gets its name from the butchers who harvest organs for the black market. We're not expected to suddenly like this man just because he's been diagnosed with terminal cancer, are we? Yes, we are. That's what "Rezervni deli" has been programmed to do. The fatal disease is supposed to elicit unconditional sympathy from its audience.
During his farewell run, Ludvik refunds a young mother after somebody alerts him about her lifeless baby. If Ludvik knew about the Macedonian girl, this goodwill act would play like knee-jerk repentance, a last ditch effort to redeem himself in god's eyes. But since he's unaware about her self-inflicted demise, we're supposed to forgive his past transgression, because this act of charity is actually born out of Ludvik's innate goodness.
No.
"Rezervni deli" never persuaded me to revel in the humanity of a man who's partly responsible for a young woman's suicide.