Kako sam sistematski unisten od idiota (1983) Reviews

• Too real to be a movie!

  jalilidalili2008-09-11

  This summer I had the great luck to see this movie by pure accident. During the film festival I wanted to see another movie, but this one was shown outside and I preferred fresh air, so I stayed there without even knowing what I'll see. Then Šijan came to the mike and announced this movie. All of us there were fascinated! So it's not so much a movie about a person trying to cope with Che's death, as it's a movie about a guy, who wants to cope with his life. He's a bum, but entirely out of his own laziness. He always blamed somebody or something for his lack of privileged life. Although this movie was said to be political, it really isn't. It's almost a documentary of the part of Yugoslavian society that wasn't suppose to exist. In the developed socialistic country there should be no beggars and everybody should want to work, for it was their privilege and right to work. So watch it, laugh at it, but try and imagine it is all true, because it's very close to reality.

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• Fantastic comedy from Sijan

  cabrilo2005-03-11

  This is a very humorous movie about communism and Marxism, or rather, communists and Marxists. It follows a life of a homeless, but very well read, Marxist who is coping with Che's death and wishes to live a life of revolutions and workers' uprisings. He is a hypochondriac, bitter at the world, and blaming his old capitalist boss for his life's misery. Sijan gives a funny portray of his world and jokes about many caste of people in Yugoslavia at that time. He is using his famous and recognizable subtle humor, which combined with fine acting and a great overall story, results in a great piece of art. Characteristic for Sijan's movies, this one also contains some fantastic and quotable one-liners. My favorite by far is: "Ovo nije brada klanja, ovo je brada razocaranja!" (this is not a beard of slaughter, this is a beard of disappointment), referring to the main character's Marxist, and not nationalist nature.

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• A interesting idea not carried out that well.

  fedor82015-01-31

  The first half-hour is interesting, but then the film starts gradually stagnating, repeating itself somewhat. It's as if the writer didn't know where to go with the plot after the Montenegrin bit. The scenes in Montenegro are good, but the Commie's return to the village of his birth doesn't lead to any particularly notable developments or amusing situations. The latter section then leads us to the unnecessarily lengthy political speech by Stevo Zigon, who reprises his real-life speech/involvement in the 1968 student "protests" which were much more like a sham than real protests against a dictatorship. If the 1968 hippie protests in the West were an absolute circus (i.e. quite like a bad, cynical joke), they were even more nonsensical in Yugoslavia. If these "protesting" Belgrade students hadn't been left-wing extremists themselves, Tito would never have allowed them to last longer than an hour. Everyone involved would have been arrested before they could say "burek". It seems that the word "protest" gets a little abused and misunderstood now and again. The script misses an opportunity to openly mock these quasi-protests, which essentially amounted to nothing more than Marxists "protesting" against Marxists, i.e. it was more like inane ideological bickering between different interpretations of Marxism than an actual attempt at radical, real criticism. Here the director switches gear somewhat from comedy to drama. He didn't succeed in that. It is commendable to show how easily a disgruntled misfit is drawn to Socialism. Like many other people, especially in the Balkans, Bata needs to find something or someone to blame for his problems and failings, so he picks capitalism to lump all of his frustrations onto, ignoring the fact that capitalism allows anyone to make money - provided they are willing to work and aren't blithering idiots. The have-nots very easily fall into this cunningly set Marxist trap, especially have-nots such as Bata, who are lazy and suffer from a case of class-envy. Nevertheless, the idea behind a movie is not enough. Bata Stojkovic plays the role of the self-infatuated, self-righteous, deluded Marxist quite well, but it's a bit of a one-joke premise, because his fanaticism makes him a little too linear, not complex enough. His Communist babbling becomes less interesting with time, making it all seem a bit too much of a one-joke film that over-relies on that one shtick which it then milks. Seka Sabljic is amusing as Bata's no. 1 fan and easily-lead bimbo.

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