Dok Night – Symbiopsychotaxicinema – PRETTY VILLAGE, PRETTY FLAME  1996 Directed by Srdjan Dragojevic

Every Thursday there’s a Vegan Dinner accompanying an exhibition opening/closing, a live performance, live music, movie screening or …
Come meet other people interested in art and activism, good food and great prices. Bring your favourite game and your friends. Or meet new people at the bar.

18u bar open

19u Vegan Ethiopian Food by Moknen

20u30 Symbiopsychotaxicinema, a film evening presentd by Jeffrey Babcock

PRETTY VILLAGE, PRETTY FLAME  1996
(Lepa Sela Lepo Gore)

Directed by Srdjan Dragojevic
129 minutes

This flick starts off in a country that no longer exists, called Yugoslavia, when it was under the reign of a guy named Tito. When Tito died, everything in the country began unraveling fast, and the economy started to plummet. This story zooms in on two young boys who are friends and follows their relationship for the next years, eventually leading them to different sides of the Bosnian war that broke out in the early 1990s. By the time this movie was made, Yugoslavia had officially perished.

This flick throws us into the thick of it, and is absolutely riveting, with great performances by all the lead actors as it juggles the politics of a chaotic time in history. It was a time when the closest friends or even families were broken apart and killing each other. This movie depicts such a tragedy, but it is also full of humor, wit and insights. The mechanics of the film are razor-sharp, from the cinematography to the dialogue to the direction. It is one of the most praised movies dealing with the topic of the war in Yugoslavia, and it shows all the absurdity, irony, ridiculousness and hypocrisy of any war situation.

It was directed by the young Yugoslavian whippersnapper Srdjan Dragojevic (We are Not Angels) who really blooms as a director here… a film that takes place in a hospital room full of severely wounded and dying soldiers, with most of the story told through flashbacks and memories.

The movie is also great in how it shows how the madness escalates… starting off with something small, but then—step by step—escalates into a furious war situation where the most unbelievable atrocities become normal. Do you think you’re immune to this kind of narrow-mindedness? I see it all around me every day. This war mentality is in the air. And now Europe is building up a huge military infrastructure—the same NATO that loves to rush into troubled areas and always thinks bombing is the best solution, just like what happened to Yugoslavia.