Underground (film)
Encyclopedia
Underground is a 1995 award-winning film
directed by Emir Kusturica
with a screenplay
by Dušan Kovačević
.
It is also known by the subtitle
Once Upon a Time There Was a Country , which was the title of the 5-hour mini-series shown on Serbia
n RTS
television
.
The film uses the epic story of two friends to portray and satirise the history of Yugoslavia
since the Second World War. The film was an international co-production among companies from FR Yugoslavia, France
, Germany
and Hungary
.
The theatrical version is 163 minutes long. In interviews, Kusturica stated that his original version
ran for over 320 minutes, and that he was forced to cut it by co-producers.
The film opens in Belgrade
in the early morning hours of Sunday, April 6, 1941 as two roguish bon vivants Petar Popara nicknamed Crni (Blacky) and Marko Dren are heading home following a night of hard drinking and partying out on the town. Riding atop a horse carriage while tailed and serenaded by a brass orchestra, they're drunkenly singing and shooting their way through the city's downtown. They pass through Kalemegdan
and shout salutes to Marko's brother Ivan who's an animal keeper in the city's zoo. A stutterer with a lame leg, Ivan is already up to feed the animals and waves to them warmly as he records food portion amounts while listening to early morning radio bulletins.
As the drunk duo pulls up in front of Blacky's home, his pregnant wife Vera comes out to angrily usher her husband into the house while naggingly threatening to leave him "just like Marko's wife left Marko". Intoxicated Marko pulls Vera aside and lets her know that they enrolled Blacky in the Communist Party, but she's way too angry about Blacky's irresponsible behaviour as a husband to even properly process that piece of information.
After saying their drunken goodbyes for the night, Blacky goes into the house while Marko proceeds on and picks up a street prostitute before disappearing into his house with her.
with the prostitute on top of him when suddenly, frightened by the bombs, she runs away in horror thus forcing him to finish himself off
.
After the air raid is over, Blacky goes out against the wishes of his wife and inspects the devastated city. Encountering building ruins and escaped wild animals from the zoo along the way, he also runs into disconsolate Ivan carrying a baby chimp named Soni. Blacky's parting piece of advice to his best friend's brother is a stern: "Stop crying! You want the Germans to see you like that and laugh at you?" before giving him some money to buy milk for the monkey.
Royal Yugoslav Army
's resistance is quickly broken, and Nazis soon occupy and dismember the entire Kingdom of Yugoslavia
. Blacky starts operating clandestinely as a communist activist along with Marko and others. Their activism mostly consists of stealing German weapons shipments as well as jewellery and other valuables from the city's elite. In theory, the idea is to send all the weapons and money made from the stolen goods to Partisan
guerrillas fighting in the woods, however, much to Blacky's dissatisfaction, many of the 'activists' are using the rackets for personal gain.
Blacky occasionally visits his mistress Natalija Zovkov who's been assigned to a special actors' labour brigade that's helping out with the city's rebuilding effort under German occupational control. An acclaimed, pampered, and celebrated actress in the National Theatre
, Natalija is finding it hard to adapt to manual labour, especially in the light that she also has a sick, wheelchair-bound brother Bata to take care of. On one of his visits to the site where she's cleaning bricks with her brother and other actors, Blacky brings her a stolen necklace, which cheers her up momentarily, but she now generally sees their relationship as a liability fearing that it could only bring her trouble like being sent away to the prison camp, especially after she heard about the bounty prize Germans have set for his capture. However, she's not without options as she's caught the eye of a high-ranking German officer named Franz who is more than willing to indulge her and pay for Bata's medicine, meaning that her manual labour days are over. Naturally, Blacky is furious over her relationship with Franz and watches in disgust as two of them drive off together.
Meanwhile, Marko has set up weapons storage and hideaway spot in the cellar of his grandfather's house. Following their interception of a large trainload of weapons, Marko and Blacky are mentioned by name and identified as dangerous bandits in Nazi radio bulletins. While Blacky is off hiding in the woods as Germans are intensifying door-to-door raids in the city, Marko takes Vera, Ivan and many others into the cellar to hide.
Vera is due any minute and gets contractions immediately upon entering the cellar. She's not feeling well physically and emotionally, and is especially mad about Blacky not being there for her. After giving birth to a baby boy, she instructs Ivan to name the baby Jovan before passing away on the cellar stairs as Ivan weeps inconsolably.
available before giddily declaring: "there'll be a wedding". Blacky also inquires whether "everything is arranged about the priest's arrival", to which Marko assures him that it's all taken care of. As Marko leaves, Blacky goes back to the bar and picks a fight with some communist activists he knows to be weapons trade profiteers. In the middle of a fist fight, Marko returns with a requested bouquet and promptly joins the fracas on his friend's side.
The two best friends then head for the theater in jovial mood while blurting out random lines from a Mayakovsky
poem. The bravado and jocular tone are only briefly interrupted when Blacky states his disgust about many activists within the organization using the situation for personal profit, urging Marko to do something about it "as a party secretary".
Once in the theater, they see Natalija performing on stage in front of beaming Franz and other German officers. Overcome by intense feelings of love and jealousy, Blacky forces his way backstage and enters the scene pretending to be part of the production. Speaking in broken German
he requests the other actor to tie him and Natalija together back-to-back with a rope. With Natalija fastened to his back, Blacky walks up to the edge of the stage and shoots Franz twice in the chest before running away as chaos ensues inside the theater.
With Natalija still strapped to his back, Blacky manages to reach the river boat anchored just outside of Belgrade. Naturally, Marko is along as well, in addition to a brass band, and all are getting ready for a forced wedding
despite Natalija's protestations. As they eat and drink, waiting for the priest to show up, live band is playing loudly and exuberantly. Blacky criticizes his tied up bride-to-be for performing for Germans, lecturing her that other women like her take care of the wounded in the woods. However, he can't bear to admonish her for long as his infatuation runs deep, but he's not nearly as forgiving when it comes to other artists who similarly performed for Germans as he vows to personally strangle National Theater director Jovan Popović. As Blacky goes off into the bushes to relieve himself, taking the brass orchestra along, he leaves Natalija tied in ropes and instructs Marko to "take care of my bride". In the bushes, Blacky is approached by Partisan messenger who just arrived from the high command informing him that comrade Leka
will take disciplinary action against him if the weapons don't arrive soon. Blacky's not worried and brings the messenger into the boat to show him it's full of weapons and assure him he'll transport them as soon he's married.
While this is going on, Marko starts to put the moves on Natalija through belittling his best friend by pointing out class disparity between her "our greatest actress" and thuggish Blacky. To that end he tells her that Blacky had been falsely presenting himself as an electrical engineer, when in fact he's "a mere electrician
- a pole
climber" by which she seems disgusted. Marko even brings Blacky's morals and communist resolve into question by telling her he has completely changed since he came into the money. Marko further sweetens his case by telling her she needs a rational intellectual like himself by her side to which she seems receptive. Suddenly, Blacky bursts in and roughs up both Marko and Natalija. Faced with Blacky's fury, she quickly changes her tune and now assures him that she wants to marry him as Marko also pleads his case and denies any wrongdoing. Blacky is somewhat pacified, but still decides to humiliate Marko by riding him like a horse around the boat deck while the band is playing.
A couple of hours later there's still no sign of the priest, but the wild night of drinking and dancing continues regardless as Blacky, Marko, and Natalija seem to have abruptly cleared up their misunderstandings. As the dawn appears, the party is interrupted by German soldiers surrounding the anchored boat. Suddenly, Franz is seen yelling from the distance behind his soldiers, demanding Blacky and Marko release Natalija. Blacky is shocked at the fact Franz is not dead, at which time Natalija unctuously points out that he always wears a bulletproof vest, before running off from the boat into Franz's waiting arms. Confused and angry, Blacky irrationally chases after her, but gets only as far as the boat ramp before Germans stop him with guns drawn. He yells back at Marko to open fire, but instead of heeding his request, Marko starts the boat up and sails off, leaving his friend in a lurch. Blacky is captured by Germans and taken into custody.
The very next day Blacky is being tortured in the city hospital by electroshocks while Franz and Natalija visit her brother Bata at the same hospital and discuss moving him to a sanatorium in Austria
. Meanwhile, Marko has found a way to enter the building through an underground sewer passage and posing as a doctor manages to enter the hospital room where Franz, Natalija and Bata are talking. Sneaking up on Franz, Marko strangles him to death with a cord in front of Natalija who switches sides once again. Marko then proceeds to a room where Blacky is being tortured and manages to free him. The plan is to leave with fatigued Blacky hidden in a suitcase, but Blacky requests a bomb to commit suicide in case he's captured again. As they're all heading back through the sewer, Blacky drops the activated bomb by mistake and gets blown to bits inside the suitcase.
He manages to survive the explosion though, but requires an extended recovery period in the cellar.
A few days later on Easter 1944, Marko and Natalija, now an official item, are watching comatose Blacky from their living room as he recovers in the cellar below. They proceed to dance and exchange exaggerated tenderness as the allied bombs start to fall on Belgrade. Natalija's response to most of Marko's fawning love declarations is: "Marko, you lie so beautifully".
Soon, the Red Army
accompanied by Yugoslav Partisans enters Belgrade thus liberating the city from the Nazis for good. Marko, an important cog in the revolutionary machine is seen proudly waving the communist Yugoslav flag and victoriously exclaiming: "Freedom".
Over the coming years he's advancing up the party and state ladder: he holds fiery speeches from the National Theater balcony during the Trieste crisis
, he socializes with Josip Broz Tito
, Ranković and Edvard Kardelj
- attending lavish parties and going on foreign state visits with them, and he stands right next to Tito during military parades through downtown Belgrade. Throughout it all, Natalija is right by Marko's side.
Marko and Natalija attend a ceremony to open a cultural center and also to unveil a statue of Petar Popara Blacky whom everyone thinks died fighting the Nazis and is thus awarded the status of a National Hero. Before delivering a keynote speech, Marko is approached by a film director who inquires whether he'd allow Natalija to play a role in the film based on his own memoirs. Marko's answer is a vehement no, but he does agree to visit the set.
Below ground, the full extent of Marko's meticulous deception is revealed. It goes to astonishing details: from time to time he stumbles down into the cellar looking haggard and beaten, pretending that Gestapo roughed him up so that the people below still think German door-to-door raids are on-going. He also regularly plays air-raid sirens as well as various newsreels that show Nazis holding strong on Eastern Front
, while urging restless Blacky to stay below and save his energy for the final battle. As a special incentive, Marko even brings his best friend an engraved watch as a personal gift from Tito himself.
With the help of his grandfather who is in on the devious con, Marko oversees the weapons manufacturing and even controls time by adding hours to a day so the people in the cellar think that only 15 years passed since the beginning of World War II instead of 20. They're continuously making weapons, and Marko profits from it enormously.
The filming of an epic state-sponsored motion picture based on Marko's memoirs titled Proleće stiže na belom konju (Spring Comes On A White Horse) begins above ground. Receiving a hero's welcome by the film's cast and crew, Marko and Natalija visit the set during shooting of the scene that erroneously depicts events on the anchored river boat on that fateful night in 1944.
Back home, in order to keep the lie going, Marko has prepared a text for Natalija to deliver in front of Blacky down below. The premise is that she's been raped and beaten by Germans, and left for dead. After some initial resistance, Natalija agrees to go along with it and in make-up that's making her look savagely beaten even delivers a scripted "I love you" to Blacky who seems energized by her declaration.
Soon, Blacky's 20-year-old son Jovan is getting married to Jelena, a girl he grew up with in the cellar. Marko and Natalija are naturally invited for a celebration. Blacky pulls his son aside and tells him he can't wait any longer and that he'll go above to fight as soon as everyone gotten drunk. He also relays his frustration about being told to wait for Tito, the party or the Russians and has decided to take matters into his own hands.
On the other table, all is not well with Natalija and Marko as she, influenced by alcohol, starts making a scene accusing Marko of stealing her youth and bemoaning her bad luck to have ever come across him. She soon begins admonishing him for the crime he got himself involved in, but he soon pacifies her at which point she repeats her statement "You lie so beautifully".
However, Blacky has heard their conversation and instead of personally killing Marko he hands him a gun and tells him to finish it himself. Blacky proceeds to tie Natalija to his back while Marko instead of committing suicide, blows out his own kneecaps with a gun. As he's doing that, Ivan's monkey Soni has wandered into a tank and fires a round blowing a hole in the wall.
Blacky with Natalija tied to him goes out and calls his son Jovan along. Blacky, with his son Jovan, emerge from underground; believing WWII is still on, they kill the lead 'Nazi' on the set of the film dramatising Blacky's own exploits twenty years earlier. In the manhunt Jovan drowns but Blacky escapes.
, sees Blacky as an embittered yet still patriotic warlord; he inadvertently orders the execution of Marko and Natalija who are still making a living as war profiteers, running guns for the various factions.
In a surreal
ending, all friends and family, living and dead, are reunited at Jovan’s wedding, where Ivan (no longer stuttering) ends the film with a closing monologue.
website, it currently garners an 83% approval rating out of 18 reviews. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
called it a "sprawling, rowdy, vital film laced with both outrageous absurdist
dark humor and unspeakable pain, suffering and injustice." Critics saw the characters Marko and Blacky as "Kusturica's idealization of Serbs trapped into desperate acts by history and others' evil while the cowardly characters in the film were Croats and Bosnians, who chose betrayal and collaboration."
, said that it promoted Serbian nationalist propaganda. The state-owned Radio Television of Serbia
had a small role in financing the film, and the film used rented Yugoslav army equipment as props. While some critics claimed the film propagated a pro-Serbian view of the Yugoslav conflict (including animosities during WWII), others suggested that its characterization of Balkan ethnic groups was equally caustic to each.
Throughout the 1990s, Kusturica was frequently attacked by French public intellectuals Bernard-Henri Lévy
and Alain Finkielkraut
(both of whom held staunchly anti-Serbian views during the disintegration of Yugoslavia and subsequent Yugoslav Wars
) in the French media over his life and career choices. Generally, the two adopted the Bosnian Muslim official nationalist view of Kusturica as a "traitor who crossed over to the enemy side thus turning his back on his city, his ethnic roots, and his nation", often publicly attacking him along similar lines. Kusturica, for his part, didn't hold back either, responding aggressively to the duo's accusations. The Lévy and Finkielkraut attacks particularly intensified after Underground won Palme d'Or
in 1995, often crossing over into name calling and insults. It started in June 1995 with Finkielkraut accusing the Cannes jury in Le Monde
of "rewarding a Pan-Serbian nationalist propagandist". Kusturica responded several months later, parodying Finkielkraut in sarcastic tone while criticizing Le Monde for even publishing Finkielkraut's vitriolic text without him seeing the film first. Finkielkraut was thus forced into admitting that he hadn't actually seen the movie when he wrote the previous piece, justifying this by writing in Libération
"that offensive and stupid falsification of the traitor taking the palm of martyrdom had to be denounced immediately". Meanwhile, Lévy called Kusturica a "fascist author" while reserving his further judgment upon seeing the film. After watching Underground, Lévy called Kusturica a "racist genius in the mold of Louis-Ferdinand Céline
" and later even made a film criticizing Underground. The entire episode soon prompted other intellectuals such as André Glucksmann
and Peter Handke
to join the debate.
During the September 2008 discussion between the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek
and Bernard-Henri Lévy on the issues surrounding the historical and social significance of May 1968 in France, Žižek brought up Underground and Kusturica to Lévy by saying: "Let me find another point of contact with you. I hope we share another point, which is - to be brutal - hatred of Emir Kusturica. We do agree here. Underground I think is one of the most horrible films that I've seen because it's as if this poem by Radovan Karadžić
that I quoted was set to film there. What kind of Yugoslav society you see in Kusturica's Underground? A society where people all the time fornicate, drink, fight - a kind of eternal orgy. And here what you referred to as this "eternal youth excessive energy" - one path, I'm not saying the only one, one path leads to Radovan Karadžić I claim. I claim that the moral duty today is precisely to problematize this carnivalist transgressive model 'Order is bad, let's suspend the rules, let's have a free excess and so on'". Lévy answered that he considers himself an "enemy of Kusturica, the man", but that Underground is "not a bad movie" before going on to commend the film's narrative structure and conclude that "Kusturica is one of the cases, we have some writers like this, where the man is so, so, so more stupid than his work" before likening Kusturica again to Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
directed by Emir Kusturica
Emir Kusturica
Emir Nemanja Kusturica , is a Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician, recognized for several internationally acclaimed feature films...
with a screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
by Dušan Kovačević
Dušan Kovacevic
Dušan Kovačević is a Serbian playwright and director best known for his theater plays and movie scripts. He also served as the ambassador of Serbia in Lisbon, Portugal....
.
It is also known by the subtitle
Subtitle (titling)
In books and other works, a subtitle is an explanatory or alternate title. For example, Mary Shelley used a subtitle to give her most famous novel, Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus, an alternate title to give a hint of the theme. In library cataloging the subtitle does not include an...
Once Upon a Time There Was a Country , which was the title of the 5-hour mini-series shown on Serbia
Serbia
Serbia , officially the Republic of Serbia , is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeast Europe, covering the southern part of the Carpathian basin and the central part of the Balkans...
n RTS
Radio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia or Serbian Broadcasting Corporation is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces a variety of news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television and the Internet. RTS is, since July 2001, a member of the European Broadcasting Union. RTS is...
television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
.
The film uses the epic story of two friends to portray and satirise the history of Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia refers to three political entities that existed successively on the western part of the Balkans during most of the 20th century....
since the Second World War. The film was an international co-production among companies from FR Yugoslavia, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Hungary
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
.
The theatrical version is 163 minutes long. In interviews, Kusturica stated that his original version
Director's cut
A director's cut is a specially edited version of a film, and less often TV series, music video, commercials, comic book or video games, that is supposed to represent the director's own approved edit...
ran for over 320 minutes, and that he was forced to cut it by co-producers.
Plot
The plot is presented through three parts: War, Cold War, and War.The film opens in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
in the early morning hours of Sunday, April 6, 1941 as two roguish bon vivants Petar Popara nicknamed Crni (Blacky) and Marko Dren are heading home following a night of hard drinking and partying out on the town. Riding atop a horse carriage while tailed and serenaded by a brass orchestra, they're drunkenly singing and shooting their way through the city's downtown. They pass through Kalemegdan
Kalemegdan
Belgrade Fortress , represent old citadel and Kalemegdan Park on the confluence of the River Sava and Danube, in an urban area of modern Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad...
and shout salutes to Marko's brother Ivan who's an animal keeper in the city's zoo. A stutterer with a lame leg, Ivan is already up to feed the animals and waves to them warmly as he records food portion amounts while listening to early morning radio bulletins.
As the drunk duo pulls up in front of Blacky's home, his pregnant wife Vera comes out to angrily usher her husband into the house while naggingly threatening to leave him "just like Marko's wife left Marko". Intoxicated Marko pulls Vera aside and lets her know that they enrolled Blacky in the Communist Party, but she's way too angry about Blacky's irresponsible behaviour as a husband to even properly process that piece of information.
After saying their drunken goodbyes for the night, Blacky goes into the house while Marko proceeds on and picks up a street prostitute before disappearing into his house with her.
1941
A couple of hours later as the Sunday dawn appears, Ivan is making rounds around the zoo to feed the animals, hungover Blacky is eating breakfast while pregnant Vera complains about his supposed affair with a theatre actress, and Marko is preparing for sex with his prostitute as he lecherously watches her take a scrub in his bath tub. Suddenly, the roar of the planes is heard, and Nazi bombs begin falling on Belgrade. In the ensuing chaos as people run for cover (including Ivan desperately trying to save his beloved animals), unflinching Blacky and Marko show no signs of panic. The former stubbornly sits at his table eating his breakfast, impulsively cursing the Nazis as his wife pleads with him to go to the shelter, while the latter is about to climaxOrgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
with the prostitute on top of him when suddenly, frightened by the bombs, she runs away in horror thus forcing him to finish himself off
Masturbation
Masturbation refers to sexual stimulation of a person's own genitals, usually to the point of orgasm. The stimulation can be performed manually, by use of objects or tools, or by some combination of these methods. Masturbation is a common form of autoeroticism...
.
After the air raid is over, Blacky goes out against the wishes of his wife and inspects the devastated city. Encountering building ruins and escaped wild animals from the zoo along the way, he also runs into disconsolate Ivan carrying a baby chimp named Soni. Blacky's parting piece of advice to his best friend's brother is a stern: "Stop crying! You want the Germans to see you like that and laugh at you?" before giving him some money to buy milk for the monkey.
Royal Yugoslav Army
Royal Yugoslav Army
The Royal Yugoslav Army was the armed force of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia from the state's formation until the force's surrender to the Axis powers on April 17, 1941...
's resistance is quickly broken, and Nazis soon occupy and dismember the entire Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Kingdom of Yugoslavia
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a state stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. Blacky starts operating clandestinely as a communist activist along with Marko and others. Their activism mostly consists of stealing German weapons shipments as well as jewellery and other valuables from the city's elite. In theory, the idea is to send all the weapons and money made from the stolen goods to Partisan
Partisans (Yugoslavia)
The Yugoslav Partisans, or simply the Partisans were a Communist-led World War II anti-fascist resistance movement in Yugoslavia...
guerrillas fighting in the woods, however, much to Blacky's dissatisfaction, many of the 'activists' are using the rackets for personal gain.
Blacky occasionally visits his mistress Natalija Zovkov who's been assigned to a special actors' labour brigade that's helping out with the city's rebuilding effort under German occupational control. An acclaimed, pampered, and celebrated actress in the National Theatre
National Theatre in Belgrade
The National Theatre was founded in the latter half of the 19th century. It is located on Republic Square, in Belgrade, Serbia.The National Theatre was declared a Monument of Culture of Great Importance in 1983, and it is protected by the Republic of Serbia....
, Natalija is finding it hard to adapt to manual labour, especially in the light that she also has a sick, wheelchair-bound brother Bata to take care of. On one of his visits to the site where she's cleaning bricks with her brother and other actors, Blacky brings her a stolen necklace, which cheers her up momentarily, but she now generally sees their relationship as a liability fearing that it could only bring her trouble like being sent away to the prison camp, especially after she heard about the bounty prize Germans have set for his capture. However, she's not without options as she's caught the eye of a high-ranking German officer named Franz who is more than willing to indulge her and pay for Bata's medicine, meaning that her manual labour days are over. Naturally, Blacky is furious over her relationship with Franz and watches in disgust as two of them drive off together.
Meanwhile, Marko has set up weapons storage and hideaway spot in the cellar of his grandfather's house. Following their interception of a large trainload of weapons, Marko and Blacky are mentioned by name and identified as dangerous bandits in Nazi radio bulletins. While Blacky is off hiding in the woods as Germans are intensifying door-to-door raids in the city, Marko takes Vera, Ivan and many others into the cellar to hide.
Vera is due any minute and gets contractions immediately upon entering the cellar. She's not feeling well physically and emotionally, and is especially mad about Blacky not being there for her. After giving birth to a baby boy, she instructs Ivan to name the baby Jovan before passing away on the cellar stairs as Ivan weeps inconsolably.
1944
It's now exactly three years later, the war still rages on, and Blacky is in town to celebrate his son's birthday at a local communist hangout. Despite the occasion being bittersweet (it is also the third anniversary of Vera's death), he's in his element: loud, brash, and boisterous - lighting a candle for his deceased wife before ordering rounds of drinks and proudly showing his son's photo around. Marko, who by now has progressed to the party secretary position, shows up and warmly greets Blacky before proceeding into the back room to make a weapons deal with some comrades. As Marko counts a huge stash of cash they've just given him, exuberant Blacky comes in and tells him to go out and buy the biggest bouquet of flowersFlower bouquet
A flower bouquet is a collection of flowers in a creative arrangement. There are different kinds including nosegay, crescent, and cascading bouquets. Flower bouquets are often given for special occasions such as birthdays or anniversaries. They are also used extensively in weddings. Traditionally...
available before giddily declaring: "there'll be a wedding". Blacky also inquires whether "everything is arranged about the priest's arrival", to which Marko assures him that it's all taken care of. As Marko leaves, Blacky goes back to the bar and picks a fight with some communist activists he knows to be weapons trade profiteers. In the middle of a fist fight, Marko returns with a requested bouquet and promptly joins the fracas on his friend's side.
The two best friends then head for the theater in jovial mood while blurting out random lines from a Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
poem. The bravado and jocular tone are only briefly interrupted when Blacky states his disgust about many activists within the organization using the situation for personal profit, urging Marko to do something about it "as a party secretary".
Once in the theater, they see Natalija performing on stage in front of beaming Franz and other German officers. Overcome by intense feelings of love and jealousy, Blacky forces his way backstage and enters the scene pretending to be part of the production. Speaking in broken German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
he requests the other actor to tie him and Natalija together back-to-back with a rope. With Natalija fastened to his back, Blacky walks up to the edge of the stage and shoots Franz twice in the chest before running away as chaos ensues inside the theater.
With Natalija still strapped to his back, Blacky manages to reach the river boat anchored just outside of Belgrade. Naturally, Marko is along as well, in addition to a brass band, and all are getting ready for a forced wedding
Forced marriage
Forced marriage is a term used to describe a marriage in which one or both of the parties is married without his or her consent or against his or her will...
despite Natalija's protestations. As they eat and drink, waiting for the priest to show up, live band is playing loudly and exuberantly. Blacky criticizes his tied up bride-to-be for performing for Germans, lecturing her that other women like her take care of the wounded in the woods. However, he can't bear to admonish her for long as his infatuation runs deep, but he's not nearly as forgiving when it comes to other artists who similarly performed for Germans as he vows to personally strangle National Theater director Jovan Popović. As Blacky goes off into the bushes to relieve himself, taking the brass orchestra along, he leaves Natalija tied in ropes and instructs Marko to "take care of my bride". In the bushes, Blacky is approached by Partisan messenger who just arrived from the high command informing him that comrade Leka
Aleksandar Rankovic
Aleksandar "Leka" Ranković was a Yugoslav communist politician of Serbian origin considered to be the third most powerful man in Yugoslavia after Josip Broz Tito and Edvard Kardelj....
will take disciplinary action against him if the weapons don't arrive soon. Blacky's not worried and brings the messenger into the boat to show him it's full of weapons and assure him he'll transport them as soon he's married.
While this is going on, Marko starts to put the moves on Natalija through belittling his best friend by pointing out class disparity between her "our greatest actress" and thuggish Blacky. To that end he tells her that Blacky had been falsely presenting himself as an electrical engineer, when in fact he's "a mere electrician
Electrician
An electrician is a tradesman specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, stationary machines and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance and repair of existing electrical infrastructure. Electricians may also...
- a pole
Utility pole
A utility pole is a pole used to support overhead power lines and various other public utilities, such as cable, fibre optic cable, and related equipment such as transformers and street lights. It can be referred to as a telephone pole, power pole, hydro pole, telegraph pole, or telegraph post,...
climber" by which she seems disgusted. Marko even brings Blacky's morals and communist resolve into question by telling her he has completely changed since he came into the money. Marko further sweetens his case by telling her she needs a rational intellectual like himself by her side to which she seems receptive. Suddenly, Blacky bursts in and roughs up both Marko and Natalija. Faced with Blacky's fury, she quickly changes her tune and now assures him that she wants to marry him as Marko also pleads his case and denies any wrongdoing. Blacky is somewhat pacified, but still decides to humiliate Marko by riding him like a horse around the boat deck while the band is playing.
A couple of hours later there's still no sign of the priest, but the wild night of drinking and dancing continues regardless as Blacky, Marko, and Natalija seem to have abruptly cleared up their misunderstandings. As the dawn appears, the party is interrupted by German soldiers surrounding the anchored boat. Suddenly, Franz is seen yelling from the distance behind his soldiers, demanding Blacky and Marko release Natalija. Blacky is shocked at the fact Franz is not dead, at which time Natalija unctuously points out that he always wears a bulletproof vest, before running off from the boat into Franz's waiting arms. Confused and angry, Blacky irrationally chases after her, but gets only as far as the boat ramp before Germans stop him with guns drawn. He yells back at Marko to open fire, but instead of heeding his request, Marko starts the boat up and sails off, leaving his friend in a lurch. Blacky is captured by Germans and taken into custody.
The very next day Blacky is being tortured in the city hospital by electroshocks while Franz and Natalija visit her brother Bata at the same hospital and discuss moving him to a sanatorium in Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
. Meanwhile, Marko has found a way to enter the building through an underground sewer passage and posing as a doctor manages to enter the hospital room where Franz, Natalija and Bata are talking. Sneaking up on Franz, Marko strangles him to death with a cord in front of Natalija who switches sides once again. Marko then proceeds to a room where Blacky is being tortured and manages to free him. The plan is to leave with fatigued Blacky hidden in a suitcase, but Blacky requests a bomb to commit suicide in case he's captured again. As they're all heading back through the sewer, Blacky drops the activated bomb by mistake and gets blown to bits inside the suitcase.
He manages to survive the explosion though, but requires an extended recovery period in the cellar.
A few days later on Easter 1944, Marko and Natalija, now an official item, are watching comatose Blacky from their living room as he recovers in the cellar below. They proceed to dance and exchange exaggerated tenderness as the allied bombs start to fall on Belgrade. Natalija's response to most of Marko's fawning love declarations is: "Marko, you lie so beautifully".
Soon, the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
accompanied by Yugoslav Partisans enters Belgrade thus liberating the city from the Nazis for good. Marko, an important cog in the revolutionary machine is seen proudly waving the communist Yugoslav flag and victoriously exclaiming: "Freedom".
Over the coming years he's advancing up the party and state ladder: he holds fiery speeches from the National Theater balcony during the Trieste crisis
Free Territory of Trieste
The Free Territory of Trieste was to be a city-state situated in Central Europe between northern Italy and Yugoslavia, created by the United Nations Security Council in the aftermath of World War II and provisionally administered by an appointed military governor commanding the peacekeeping United...
, he socializes with Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz Tito
Marshal Josip Broz Tito – 4 May 1980) was a Yugoslav revolutionary and statesman. While his presidency has been criticized as authoritarian, Tito was a popular public figure both in Yugoslavia and abroad, viewed as a unifying symbol for the nations of the Yugoslav federation...
, Ranković and Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj
Edvard Kardelj also known under the pseudonyms Sperans and Krištof was a Yugoslav communist political leader, economist, partisan, publicist, and full member of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts...
- attending lavish parties and going on foreign state visits with them, and he stands right next to Tito during military parades through downtown Belgrade. Throughout it all, Natalija is right by Marko's side.
1961
It's now 1961, and Marko is one of Tito's closest associates and advisors, while the physically recovered Blacky and company are still in the cellar under the impression that the World War II is still going on above.Marko and Natalija attend a ceremony to open a cultural center and also to unveil a statue of Petar Popara Blacky whom everyone thinks died fighting the Nazis and is thus awarded the status of a National Hero. Before delivering a keynote speech, Marko is approached by a film director who inquires whether he'd allow Natalija to play a role in the film based on his own memoirs. Marko's answer is a vehement no, but he does agree to visit the set.
Below ground, the full extent of Marko's meticulous deception is revealed. It goes to astonishing details: from time to time he stumbles down into the cellar looking haggard and beaten, pretending that Gestapo roughed him up so that the people below still think German door-to-door raids are on-going. He also regularly plays air-raid sirens as well as various newsreels that show Nazis holding strong on Eastern Front
Eastern Front (World War II)
The Eastern Front of World War II was a theatre of World War II between the European Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet Union, Poland, and some other Allies which encompassed Northern, Southern and Eastern Europe from 22 June 1941 to 9 May 1945...
, while urging restless Blacky to stay below and save his energy for the final battle. As a special incentive, Marko even brings his best friend an engraved watch as a personal gift from Tito himself.
With the help of his grandfather who is in on the devious con, Marko oversees the weapons manufacturing and even controls time by adding hours to a day so the people in the cellar think that only 15 years passed since the beginning of World War II instead of 20. They're continuously making weapons, and Marko profits from it enormously.
The filming of an epic state-sponsored motion picture based on Marko's memoirs titled Proleće stiže na belom konju (Spring Comes On A White Horse) begins above ground. Receiving a hero's welcome by the film's cast and crew, Marko and Natalija visit the set during shooting of the scene that erroneously depicts events on the anchored river boat on that fateful night in 1944.
Back home, in order to keep the lie going, Marko has prepared a text for Natalija to deliver in front of Blacky down below. The premise is that she's been raped and beaten by Germans, and left for dead. After some initial resistance, Natalija agrees to go along with it and in make-up that's making her look savagely beaten even delivers a scripted "I love you" to Blacky who seems energized by her declaration.
Soon, Blacky's 20-year-old son Jovan is getting married to Jelena, a girl he grew up with in the cellar. Marko and Natalija are naturally invited for a celebration. Blacky pulls his son aside and tells him he can't wait any longer and that he'll go above to fight as soon as everyone gotten drunk. He also relays his frustration about being told to wait for Tito, the party or the Russians and has decided to take matters into his own hands.
On the other table, all is not well with Natalija and Marko as she, influenced by alcohol, starts making a scene accusing Marko of stealing her youth and bemoaning her bad luck to have ever come across him. She soon begins admonishing him for the crime he got himself involved in, but he soon pacifies her at which point she repeats her statement "You lie so beautifully".
However, Blacky has heard their conversation and instead of personally killing Marko he hands him a gun and tells him to finish it himself. Blacky proceeds to tie Natalija to his back while Marko instead of committing suicide, blows out his own kneecaps with a gun. As he's doing that, Ivan's monkey Soni has wandered into a tank and fires a round blowing a hole in the wall.
Blacky with Natalija tied to him goes out and calls his son Jovan along. Blacky, with his son Jovan, emerge from underground; believing WWII is still on, they kill the lead 'Nazi' on the set of the film dramatising Blacky's own exploits twenty years earlier. In the manhunt Jovan drowns but Blacky escapes.
1992
The final section, set in 1992 at the height of the Yugoslav warsYugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
, sees Blacky as an embittered yet still patriotic warlord; he inadvertently orders the execution of Marko and Natalija who are still making a living as war profiteers, running guns for the various factions.
In a surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
ending, all friends and family, living and dead, are reunited at Jovan’s wedding, where Ivan (no longer stuttering) ends the film with a closing monologue.
Cast
- Miki ManojlovićMiki ManojlovicPredrag "Miki" Manojlović is a Serbian actor, famous for his starring roles in some of the most important films of former Yugoslav cinema. Since the early 1990s, he successfully branched out into movies made outside the Balkans, meaning that he's currently active in productions all over Europe...
as Marko Dren, arms dealer and Communist leader - Lazar RistovskiLazar RistovskiLazar "Laza" Ristovski is a Serbian actor, director, producer and writer. He has appeared on stage about 4000 times, and starred in over 40 films, TV series and TV dramas, mostly in lead roles.-Biography:...
as Petar "Blacky" Popara, an electrician and Serbian patriot - Mirjana JokovićMirjana JokovicMirjana Joković is a Serbian film and stage actress, best known for her role as Natalija Zovkov in Underground, the film of Emir Kusturica...
as Natalija Zovkov, an opportunistic actress constantly switching loyalties - Slavko ŠtimacSlavko ŠtimacSlavko Štimac is a Serbian actor. He graduated from The Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Serbia.Slavko Štimac made his screen debut in the 1972 film Vuk samotnjak...
as Ivan Dren, Marko's brother who suffers from a stutter and cares for animals - Ernst Stötzner as Franz, a Wehrmacht officer in charge of Belgrade. Stötzner also portrays an actor playing Franz.
- Srđan Todorović as Jovan Popara, Blacky's son, who lives almost his entire life underground
- Mirjana KaranovićMirjana KaranovicMirjana Karanović is a Serbian actress known for many important roles in former Yugoslav films during the past quarter of a century....
as Vera, Blacky's wife - Danilo Bata StojkovićDanilo Bata StojkovicDanilo Stojković , commonly nicknamed Bata , was a Serbian theatre, television and film actor...
as Grandfather, Marko's grandfather who owns the cellar and helps perpetuate his ruse - Bora TodorovićBora TodorovicBorivoje "Bora" Todorović is a Serbian actor...
as Golub, the leader of the brass orchestra that frequently accompanies Blacky and Marko - Davor DujmovićDavor DujmovicDavor Dujmović was a Yugoslav actor best known for his memorable roles in Emir Kusturica's movies as Mirza in When Father Was Away on Business, Perhan in Time of the Gypsies and Bata in Underground.-Career:Born into a poor working class family, Dujmović's acting...
as Bata, Natalija's crippled brother
Critical reception
The film has not been widely reviewed by English-language critics, though it has gained generally favorable reviews. On the Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
website, it currently garners an 83% approval rating out of 18 reviews. Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
called it a "sprawling, rowdy, vital film laced with both outrageous absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
dark humor and unspeakable pain, suffering and injustice." Critics saw the characters Marko and Blacky as "Kusturica's idealization of Serbs trapped into desperate acts by history and others' evil while the cowardly characters in the film were Croats and Bosnians, who chose betrayal and collaboration."
Awards
- The film won the "Palme d'OrPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
" (Golden Palm) award at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival1995 Cannes Film Festival-Jury:*Jeanne Moreau *Gianni Amelio *Jean-Claude Brialy *Nadine Gordimer *Gaston Kabore *Michele-Ray Gavras *Emilio Garcia Riera *Philippe Rousselot *John Waters...
, considered the festival's highest honor. It was director Emir Kusturica's second such award after When Father Was Away on BusinessWhen Father Was Away on BusinessWhen Father Was Away on Business is a 1985 Yugoslav film by Serbian director Emir Kusturica. The screenplay was written by the Bosnian dramatist Abdulah Sidran...
, making Kusturica one of only seven filmmakers to receive two Golden Palms. - 1997, the film won "Best Foreign Language Film" awards from the Boston Society of Film CriticsBoston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
and the National Society of Film CriticsNational Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language FilmThe National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the annual awards given by the National Society of Film Critics.-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:...
, following its release in the United States.
Controversy
The film was considered controversial by some critics. Stanko Cerović, director of the Serbo-Croatian editorial department of Radio France InternationaleRadio France Internationale
Radio France Internationale was created in 1975 as part of Radio France by the Government of France, and replaced the Poste Colonial , Paris Mondial , Radio Paris , RTF Radio Paris and ORTF Radio Paris...
, said that it promoted Serbian nationalist propaganda. The state-owned Radio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia
Radio Television of Serbia or Serbian Broadcasting Corporation is the public broadcaster in Serbia. It broadcasts and produces a variety of news, drama, and sports programming through radio, television and the Internet. RTS is, since July 2001, a member of the European Broadcasting Union. RTS is...
had a small role in financing the film, and the film used rented Yugoslav army equipment as props. While some critics claimed the film propagated a pro-Serbian view of the Yugoslav conflict (including animosities during WWII), others suggested that its characterization of Balkan ethnic groups was equally caustic to each.
Throughout the 1990s, Kusturica was frequently attacked by French public intellectuals Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy
Bernard-Henri Lévy is a French public intellectual, philosopher and journalist. Often referred to today, in France, simply as BHL, he was one of the leaders of the "Nouveaux Philosophes" movement in 1976.-Early life:...
and Alain Finkielkraut
Alain Finkielkraut
Alain Finkielkraut is a French essayist, and son of a Jewish-Polish manufacturer of fine leather goods who had been deported to Auschwitz and survived. He currently teaches at the École polytechnique as professor of the "history of ideas and modernity" in the department of humanities and social...
(both of whom held staunchly anti-Serbian views during the disintegration of Yugoslavia and subsequent Yugoslav Wars
Yugoslav wars
The Yugoslav Wars were a series of wars, fought throughout the former Yugoslavia between 1991 and 1995. The wars were complex: characterized by bitter ethnic conflicts among the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, mostly between Serbs on the one side and Croats and Bosniaks on the other; but also...
) in the French media over his life and career choices. Generally, the two adopted the Bosnian Muslim official nationalist view of Kusturica as a "traitor who crossed over to the enemy side thus turning his back on his city, his ethnic roots, and his nation", often publicly attacking him along similar lines. Kusturica, for his part, didn't hold back either, responding aggressively to the duo's accusations. The Lévy and Finkielkraut attacks particularly intensified after Underground won Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
in 1995, often crossing over into name calling and insults. It started in June 1995 with Finkielkraut accusing the Cannes jury in Le Monde
Le Monde
Le Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
of "rewarding a Pan-Serbian nationalist propagandist". Kusturica responded several months later, parodying Finkielkraut in sarcastic tone while criticizing Le Monde for even publishing Finkielkraut's vitriolic text without him seeing the film first. Finkielkraut was thus forced into admitting that he hadn't actually seen the movie when he wrote the previous piece, justifying this by writing in Libération
Libération
Libération is a French daily newspaper founded in Paris by Jean-Paul Sartre and Serge July in 1973 in the wake of the protest movements of May 1968. Originally a leftist newspaper, it has undergone a number of shifts during the 1980s and 1990s...
"that offensive and stupid falsification of the traitor taking the palm of martyrdom had to be denounced immediately". Meanwhile, Lévy called Kusturica a "fascist author" while reserving his further judgment upon seeing the film. After watching Underground, Lévy called Kusturica a "racist genius in the mold of Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline
Louis-Ferdinand Céline was the pen name of French writer and physician Louis-Ferdinand Destouches . Céline was chosen after his grandmother's first name. He is considered one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century, developing a new style of writing that modernized both French and...
" and later even made a film criticizing Underground. The entire episode soon prompted other intellectuals such as André Glucksmann
André Glucksmann
André Glucksmann is a French philosopher and writer, and member of the French new philosophers.-Early years:André Glucksmann was born in 1937, in Boulogne-Billancourt, the son of Ashkenazi Jewish parents from Romania and Czechoslovakia. He studied in Lyon, and later enrolled at École normale...
and Peter Handke
Peter Handke
Peter Handke is an avant-garde Austrian novelist and playwright.-Early life:Handke and his mother lived in the Soviet-occupied Pankow district of Berlin from 1944 to 1948 before resettling in Griffen...
to join the debate.
During the September 2008 discussion between the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
and Bernard-Henri Lévy on the issues surrounding the historical and social significance of May 1968 in France, Žižek brought up Underground and Kusturica to Lévy by saying: "Let me find another point of contact with you. I hope we share another point, which is - to be brutal - hatred of Emir Kusturica. We do agree here. Underground I think is one of the most horrible films that I've seen because it's as if this poem by Radovan Karadžić
Radovan Karadžic
Radovan Karadžić is a former Bosnian Serb politician. He is detained in the United Nations Detention Unit of Scheveningen, accused of war crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats during the Siege of Sarajevo, as well as ordering the Srebrenica massacre.Educated as a...
that I quoted was set to film there. What kind of Yugoslav society you see in Kusturica's Underground? A society where people all the time fornicate, drink, fight - a kind of eternal orgy. And here what you referred to as this "eternal youth excessive energy" - one path, I'm not saying the only one, one path leads to Radovan Karadžić I claim. I claim that the moral duty today is precisely to problematize this carnivalist transgressive model 'Order is bad, let's suspend the rules, let's have a free excess and so on'". Lévy answered that he considers himself an "enemy of Kusturica, the man", but that Underground is "not a bad movie" before going on to commend the film's narrative structure and conclude that "Kusturica is one of the cases, we have some writers like this, where the man is so, so, so more stupid than his work" before likening Kusturica again to Louis-Ferdinand Céline.
See also
- Underground (soundtrack)
- List of Yugoslavian films
- Who's That Singing Over There