Ensofter
Overrated and overhyped
2hotFeature
one of my absolute favorites!
Usamah Harvey
The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.
tuckerbjones
I've seen a lot of movies from the Western Balkans in the last two years (about 30 out of the last 40 movies I've seen are from the former Yugoslavia) but this one stands out the most. This is the only movie on IMDb that I've given a 10-star rating. The movie seems to be pretty fair to both the Americans and the Serbs, with each put into moral dilemmas and not necessarily making the best choices. The consequences of the war on everyday people in Belgrade are also evident, with several named characters dying throughout the film. Other reviewers say that this movie is made to make Serbs look like powerless victims, but that's actually how the majority of Belgrade residents viewed themselves. Whether that's accurate or not is up for debate. Still, the movie is made by Belgraders about Belgraders, so expect some mild bias. I found that only a few of the main characters were really flat while most of the core crew was fairly well-developed. Each grappled with issues of divided loyalties.Other reviewers have mentioned that the movie seems incomplete and that the editing is at times choppy and hard to understand. This is absolutely true. However, the moment when the editing gets choppy is the moment when the editor character dies. The movie is quite meta; the audience is meant to believe that the characters in the film actually produced the film and so as the on-screen film team falls into chaos, so does the clarity and production quality of the movie that the audience is watching. I found that this added to the movie, while other reviewers think it took away from it. Your call. I honestly wasn't expecting a masterpiece. Movies about movies, just like poems about poetry, songs about singing, or other art about art, can easily become self-indulgent and plain boring. However, Rat Uzivo/War Live is indeed a masterpiece. It manages not to be excessively self- indulgent but instead meta in all the best ways. (Also, I was amazed to see the logo of the Durham Bulls, my local minor league baseball team, on the hat of Harvey the American. Unexpected moment of North Carolina pride.)
bakovljev
The first two thirds of the film were excellent and most watchable. Sadly, the editing of the last part is rushed and leaves one confused, unsure of what it really is trying to say.Anyone who is fearful of this being a propaganda movie will be happy to learn that the central (bad guy) character represents the prevailing regime. I cannot possibly agree that it is a Serbian nationalist flick.For a glimpse of what it may have been like to be in Belgrade whilst bombs were dropping around you, this is a great and interesting portrayal. It may not have been the bombs themselves causing havoc, but politics, opinions, love, hate, alcohol etc. The drunken scene in the restaurant with the bombing in the background is terrific.
Jasmine Jade
I can't believe this terrible film was made by the same people who made Lepa Sela Lepo Gore. Watch that and skip this. The plot is muddled and the characters are mostly two-dimensional stereotypes. I suspect the editor went on vacation halfway through the film because quick, choppy cuts start to appear that only confuse matters rather than elucidate them. The ending doesn't make sense either.This is predominantly a propaganda film made so Serbs can feel sorry for themselves and vilify America for the NATO bombings of 1999. They do this by perpetuating lies about Serbs being our allies during WWII, claiming the whole world is unjustly against them, and completely ignoring everything said and done by Slobodan Milosevic, like waging war on three neighboring countries. They seem intent on making a political film but only show a few seconds of Milosevic on a TV screen with no sound. A nationalist agenda obviously superseded any consideration of art which was not the case with Lepa Sela.Regrettably, I recommended this film to a teacher when it played last week at the Seattle International Film Festival. He also cited the bad editing and confusing plot, and I had to apologize for the bad advice. You've been warned.
mweston
This film, which was Yugoslavia's nomination for best foreign language film of 2001, starts as an entertaining comedy about the making of an underfunded independent film in Yugoslavia.Later it turns into more of a drama, but somehow I was left behind at the transition. The acting is probably better than I realized at the time, because the actors were convincingly bad actors in the film within the film, which is likely harder than it looks. Seen at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) on 2/22/2002.
