As a war-comedy movie, the movie did more than just achieving its original goal of showing a depiction of war and making people laugh at the same time. I think the movie, using its long duration at its best, really exerts control on what the audience feel when seeing it. This movie can be very funny when it is in the comedic scenes; with very black comedic satire laughing at the hypocrisy of war. But it can also be stoic and ironic when it shows the scenes of war tearing a country apart. It can reach the sorrowful depths, as when the movie shows Ivan looking for Soni, or when Crni looks at the burning wheelchair. The acting is quite nice, although I think that the movie lacks so much in story telling, possibly due to overly extensive editing.

There is some rumors that no one can betray you as someone really close, like godfather, or that there is no war if brother fight each other.This is at first story about friendship between two mostly different characters placed in two main roles, Crni and Marko, chasing for love of one woman, Natalia, which in one great musically color-full scene declares them as "there can be made one great made from two of you". In a drama of World War II placed in Belgrade, they will be fighting against Nazi Germans, for freedom and for her love. Lot of black humor comic scenes in war colored places of Balkan, filmed from genius Emir Kusturica, made this movie "must see" if u "wanna understand Balkan soul".

It's 1941 Belgrade. Blacky and Marko Dren are best friends partying around town. Marko enrolls Blacky into the Communist Party. The Nazis bomb and occupy the city. The guys start stealing from the Nazis and hunted as wanted men. Three years later in a rage of jealousy, Blacky goes on stage strapped to his mistress Natalija and kills her Nazi officer lover. Blacky is later shot while escaping. After the war, Marko becomes a high functionary with Tito as he elevates Blacky's heroism through film while Blacky is actually still alive. Marko keeps Blacky and others underground manufacturing weapons under the false pretense that they are still occupied by the Nazis.There is something about this movie that seems lost in translation. It feels like there is something being said about the ethnic mix of the characters but I don't think it's clear. It doesn't explain the war in the Balkans which would be the most important aspect to explain for a movie of that time. The movie's surrealism also takes away from any realism to the all-too-real situation.

I struggled to explain to my sister why this was my ideal film. I showed it to her, pointed out my favourite moments and still she asked why I chose this film, so my choice might be more personal than I realise. But I'll try again: this exceptional film examines both how we fail as individuals and how we fail as a species, and yet it does so with an embracing enthusiasm for the other aspects of our humanity. The music is stunning, the acting is sublime, the characterizations are fully realised and believable, and the absurdity of what we watch unfold is never truly impossible. We are watching examples of misbehaving human beings and acknowledging, all along the way, that we recognize this behaviour. This film is a metaphor, but it is never detached from what its subject or its message - that history is a curse that comes to certain places at certain times and interrupts the natural flow of whom we could be without the extravagance of either ideology or self-interest.