Name: Retro Film Review: Cabaret Balkan (Bure baruta, 1998)
Item: Cabaret Balkan
Rating: 89
Author: @drax

(source:tmdb.org)

Violent destruction of former Yugoslavia resulted, among many other things, with quite a few films dealing with those events. The best among them were those that had approached this process indirectly, mostly by showing the cultural, political and moral aftermath of such violence or trying to explain how all that happened. One of those films was Cabaret Balkan (also known as Bure baruta), 1998 Serbian drama directed by Goran Paskaljević.

The plot, based on the stage play by Dejan Dukovski, is set in Belgrade during one cold night in December 1995. Boris (played by Nikola Ristanovski), androgynous entertainer in one of Belgrade's night clubs, rants about his city and his country having lost any hope of decent life. What happens next seems to prove his point. The film follows some twenty or so characters in the series of vignettes during which seemingly innocent events - a bus ride, old friends chatting, lovers quarrelling, a train ride - always degenerate into violent and deeply disturbing experience for at least one of the participants.

Cabaret Balkan appeared in non-Serbian cinemas just as NATO bombs started to rock that country. That was something of a double-edged sword for the film - on one hand, bombing campaign gave the extra publicity; on the other hand, the film lost something of its point. Cabaret Balkan describes Serbia in the period when that country wasn't directly affected by ex-Yugoslav wars. Military operations and large destruction used to happen beyond Serbian borders and the only unmistakable sign of war was in the form of crippling UN sanctions. Despite ruined economy and despite rampaging organised crime, Serbia nominally gave impression of some sort of normality. People were still going to work, children went to school, some people even tried to make money through honest work or change the government through democratic means. But Paskaljević knew that this normality was just an illusion – the fabric of Serbian normality had been torn down long before the first NATO bomb hit Serbian territory.

Many compared Cabaret Balkan with The Wounds, Srdjan Dragojević's film that had dealt with similar issues. Paskaljević, unlike Dragojević, chose to present moral descent of Serbia through much broader set of characters. Protagonists of Cabaret Balkan aren't teenagers who grew up in violence and don't know anything better - they are adults who are supposed to know better. Despicable acts are committed by mild-mannered intellectuals and former idealistic revolutionaries; collapse of moral values have stripped away the thin layer of "civilisation", "enlightenment" and "decency" and left those men with the same atavistic impulses that plague their uneducated, impoverished lower-class countrymen. The very randomness of the violence is another disturbing thing in this film - it erupts suddenly, triggered by a word, gesture or, more often than not, impulses understood only by their perpetrators. Violence is sometimes accompanied by acts of absurdity and black humour - in one particularly macabre scene, one character makes reassuring and calming gestures towards victims, while his friends loses himself in the orgy of violent destruction. Violence is not always limited towards other people - some of the scenes feature characters who are undoubtedly suicidal and even relish in the utter irrationality of their acts.

Cabaret Balkan was highly respected in its time, but it was hardly the most popular Serbian film around. The Wounds dealt with similarly bleak subjects and similarly violent and depraved protagonists, but the bleakness was modified with humour and "hip" editing techniques. Paskaljević, who is veteran filmmaker, discards all those cheap tricks. Film's non linear narrative structure is hardly a tribute to Tarantino - it actually underlines the tightness of the script. Paskaljević also shows all the events in the film with almost solemn seriousness. Few macabre situations can be funny in their own way, but audience is quickly reminded that the story isn't a happy one. Paskaljević's talents are aided by the impressive cast that features various generations of top Serbian actors, ranging from legendary veteran Ljuba Tadić (in a short but effective cameo) to young 1990s stars like Nebojša Glogovac, Ana Sofrenović and Mirjana Joković.

Serbia today is somewhat nicer place than it used to be six years ago and many could discard this film as nothing more than a reflection of that country's past hopelessness. It is a very disturbing but powerful film that can still serve a useful purpose. By showing how a seemingly "normal" country and its people can degenerate into cesspool of violence and moral descent, Cabaret Balkan warns that such things can happen again, and not only to Serbia.

RATING: 9/10 (++++)

(Note: The text in its original form was posted in Usenet newsgroup rec.arts.films.reviews on August 21st 2004)