Re-watching old movies
Ivo Skoric
ivo at reporters.net
Tue Apr 30 02:47:57 CEST 2002
Re-watching old movies
Sjecas li se Doli Bel?
(Do You Remember Dolly Bell?, by Emir Kusturica, 1981, Venice
film festival Golden Lion award winner)
Yesterday I watched again Kusturica's first movie. Now, twenty
years later, looking at it from far and beyond, it is really just a
beautiful small dark comedy. There is humor in almost every scene
of this film in which everybody smokes or is encouraged and
prodded to smoke cigarettes - even in the scene of dying (of lung
cancer?). That humor is neatly summarized in the film's thematic
slogan: "every day in every way we get better and better." Kusturica
earns merits for making fun of the ironies of life in the so-called
communist society. The humor seems to be absent only from a
very, very realistic scene of violence, in which Dolly Bell's pimp
beats up the main character.
Casual domestic violence is satirized. 'Pater familias' is portrayed
as jovial, intelligent, street-smart old gent, and his slapping kids
and shutting-up women around him is presented in a humorous
way and with no trace of critique of the domestic violence issue.
Violence in general is viewed fatalistic - as an inevitable and
unchangeable fact of life. So, why don't we just make fun of it and
get on with our lives?
Now, keeping in mind that ten years after that film was produced,
the generation, that grew up watching it, got involved in some of the
worst violence in the century, one cannot avoid asking whether
such approach to the issue of violence in this and, perhaps, other
films of that era, could contribute to the later popular acceptance of
the concepts for violent social change in the region, or is that the
same type of argument like saying that Hollywood films like The
Fight Club cause the actual violence in the US society?
Ivo
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