Love and Other Crimes (2007)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Love and other crimes |
| Original title | Ljubav i drugi zločini |
| Country of production | Serbia |
| original language | Serbian |
| Publishing year | 2007 |
| length | 106 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Stefan Arsenijević |
| script | Stefan Arsenijević Srdjan Koljevic Bojan Vuletic |
| production |
Christine Kiauk Janez Kovic Gabriele Kranzelbinder Miljana Martinovic Miroslav Mogorovich Herbert Schwering |
| music | Naked lunch |
| camera | Simon Tansek |
| cut | Andrew Bird |
| occupation | |
| |
Love and other crimes (original title: Ljubav i drugi zločini ) is a social drama with elements of a comedy film by the Serbian director Stefan Arsenijević from the film year 2008 . He laconically thematizes upheaval and adjustment, love and farewell in the desolate surroundings of New Belgrade, which was shaped by the Kosovo war .
The film was shown internationally for the first time on February 10, 2008 at the Berlinale 2008 and celebrated its premiere in Serbia on September 17, 2008. It was also featured in the Stuttgart Days of Serbian Film from December 9 to 12, 2012. At the 2008 Sofia International Film Festival he won the award for best director.
action
The film shows scenes from a single gray winter day from early morning until late at night.
The Serbian Anica is tired of her dreary existence as the lover of the aging protection racketeer Milutin, who likes to see her in his bed, but not as a photo in his apartment. She plans to use Milutin's money to escape the shabby, gray, prefabricated housing estate in Belgrade , which had deteriorated after the Yugoslav civil wars and the NATO air war . He hides his mafia-like activities behind the facade of a solarium and exploits poor snack bars and video stores in the area, whereby the torched kiosk on the border with the neighboring district leads to a conflict with the gang there. Milutin's fourteen-year-old daughter - her mother died in childbirth - shows autistic features and is preserved on the skyscraper roof by Milutin's young helper Stanislav by singing along with her melancholy song about jumping into the deep. In view of the problems and her own sadness, Milutin sinks into silent motionlessness at her desk for hours, while Anica brings gifts to the people she loves and trust without revealing herself.
Stanislav, who takes care of his earlier chanson in Paris, his mourning mother, can not only see from his window in Anica's apartment in the skyscraper across the street, but also suspects her plans. He has been secretly in love with the much older woman since puberty and sneaked into Russian tutoring from her when she was at school. He finally approaches her awkwardly and even persuades her to visit him at home to present himself to her as a magician via video. In view of these completely different qualities, he too dreams of a new life abroad and tries to win Anica for a common cause, which he finally succeeds to a certain extent: Anica reveals her plan to plunder the freshly filled safe in the solarium in the evening and makes an appointment there with him.
When Milutin comes to, he sends Stanislav with his singing skills and red roses as a messenger to a lover from earlier days. Stanislav finds this charming, but still refuses to forgive Milutin for leaving her for his daughter's mother seventeen years ago. Meanwhile, Anica steals Milutin's money alone. After all, she puts a small part of it back in the safe - and her photo as well, as a farewell.
Stanislav then waits in vain for Anica for a long time, until she changes her mind and returns to the dark solarium. But Stanislav has also dropped his idea and tries to persuade Anica to stay with him in Belgrade. After a tender kiss , Anica drives to the airport alone, while Milutin listens to Stanislav's report in a bar and lets his mother sing the chanson from the high-rise roof over and over again on stage. He casually reveals that he was also aware of Anica's plans and even deliberately put more money in the safe than usual.
Before Anica finally orders a whiskey with a heavy heart next to an empty seat on the plane , Stanislav is struck down with two shots by the young gangster of the competing gang, who had threatened him with a pistol that afternoon. He lies bleeding profusely in the grass and sees a machine pulling high above him in the dark night sky.
criticism
“In his laconic drama“ Love and Other Crimes ”, the young Serbian director Stefan Arsenijevic shows how people react when their familiar patterns and codes of conduct collapse. Observing closely, a few gestures are enough for him to draw the figures so profoundly with a very clear and reserved image design that any moral judgment is difficult. [...] It is precisely the formal sobriety of Arsenijevíc's first full-length feature film that creates a lasting feeling of trepidation. [...] Persevering in a vacuum between protest and acceptance hits the sensitivities in Europe that is growing together on the head. The film thus points far beyond its Eastern European setting, in which many developments that are also taking place in other places are simply crystallized even more clearly. "
"The director Arsenijevics knows how to make the viewer smile with deep black humor [...]" Love and other crimes "is a wonderfully successful film that knows how to take a different look at Belgrade in Serbia."
Web links
- Love and Other Crimes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Love and other crimes, catalog | Berlinale 2008 (PDF; 168 kB)
- Page about the Stuttgart Days of Serbian Film
Individual evidence
- ↑ Love and other crimes. Overview. filmstarts.de, accessed on December 22, 2014 .
- ↑ Nicole Kühn: Love and other crimes. Movie review. filmstarts.de, accessed on December 22, 2014 .
- ↑ Anja Köhler: Love and other crimes. (No longer available online.) Filmkunstkinos.de, archived from the original on December 22, 2014 ; accessed on December 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
