Underground 1995
Underground ★★★ Once Upon a Time There Was a Country; Il Etait une Fois un Pays 1995
Exhausting black comedy, set in Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1992, follows the adventures of Marko (Manojlovic) and his best friend Blacky (Ristovski). They run a black-market operation and lead Communist Party meetings while trying to avoid the Gestapo in WWII Belgrade. Hiding out in a cellar, where refugees have put together a munitions factory, the treacherous Marko manages to convince everyone that the war is still going on—20 years later in fact—until the truth unexpectedly comes out (thanks to a pet monkey). The final section sees Marko unscrupulously dealing arms and drugs amidst the breakup of Yugoslavia in a civil war and the violence on all sides. 192m/C VHS, DVD . FR GE HU Miki (Predrag) Manojlovic, Lazar Ristovski, Mirjana Jokovic, Slavko Stimac, Ernst Stotzner, Srdan Todorovic, Mirjana Karanovic, Milena Pavlovic, Danilo Stojkovic, Bora Todorovic, Davor Dujmovic, Branislav Lecic, Dragan Nikolic, Hark Bohm; Cameos: Emir Kusturica; D: Emir Kusturica; W: Emir Kusturica, Dusan Kovacevic; C: Vilko Filac; M: Goran Bregovic. Cannes ‘95: Film.