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Underground
Directed by Emir Kusturica, 1994
Once upon a time there was a country.
Below you will find a number of questions and information about Underground. Please consider these as an outline for Wednesday's discussion.
A link to the Yugoslav distributor's site: http://www.komuna.com/film/underground/
"Kusturica's 'Underground' (1995): historical allegory or propaganda?" by Professor Dina Iordanova, a film specialist, can be found at the following link: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2584/1_19/54482181/p1/article.jhtml
'"Who Will Take the Blame," by Peter Krasztev (an article from Central Europe Review) can be found at the following link: http://www.ce-review.org/99/3/kinoeye3_krasztev.html
This is a complex film that spans five decades of Yugoslav history. One way of analyzing a work of this kind is to step back initially, and write a brief synopsis--five or six sentences, for example. This is by no means an easy task, but is worthwhile, since it requires that we choose the most important points of the story, distilling the story into a basic structure. Try to do this for class discussion.
Another word of advice as we view the films in the course: watch for recurring imagery and symbols from film to film. For example, in UNDERGROUND we see the upside-down cross, which will appear elsewhere.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What is the significance of the title?
2. The Belgrade Zoo is bombed in the beginning of the film--how and to what end does the filmmaker use animal imagery? Note also the relationship between characters and animals.
3. There are two heroes in the film, Marko and Blacky (Crny). Discuss each character, and how are they related, and what does each seem to represent?
4. Andrew James Horton, in his article on Kusturica (Central European Review, Vol. 2, No.14, 10 April 2000) points to the varied, and even diametrically opposed responses to the film. He notes that:
Supporters maintain that it is a complex work on many levels with an acute awareness of the contradictions of Yugoslavia's troubled history and that it satirizes the dishonesty and opportunity of the warmongers. As one critic, mindful of both the comedy and tragedy of the film, describes it as being "as if The Marx Brothers had been enlisted to tell us the history of man's inhumanity to man."
Detractors have labeled the film pro-Milosevic, pointing out that it presents the Balkans as some great arena of madness, in which some ingrained mentality makes violence inevitable and unstoppable. This, critics say, puts Kusturica in line with Serbian foreign policy at the time, which was to try and cloud the issue of Bosnia and make it seem somehow beyond and incapable of rational comprehension. The aim was to induce a "there's no easy solution, let's leave them to shoot it out"-type.
Moreover, the film's subtitle, "Once Upon a Time there was a Country," has been taken by many to indicate that the film is an exercise in nostalgia for Yugoslavia in its largest sense.
5. While we have covered less of the historical context in the course, is it possible to take a side here? Is it necessary? And what does this kind of controversy say about the role of art? Can it exist independently of politics? Remember what Drakulic discusses in "Why I Never Went to Moscow," and the issue of the writer’s role in Eastern Europe.
6. The two heroes are linked through their common history, through Natalija, and through their parallel lives aboveground and underground. What issues is the director trying to raise in this way of portraying Marko and Crny?
7. Discuss the portrayal of the character of Natalija in the film. Positive? Negative? Ambiguous?
8.Newsreel and documentary footage are used throughout the film; how does the director incorporate these segments into the larger context of the film. There is some rather heavy-handed photo-montage (Marko kissing Tito, Crny walking in Belgrade after the bombing); is there a message what appears to be the deliberate way the director reveals this device?9. A theme in art on totalitarianism concerns the manipulation of historical reality–this theme is clearly brought out in the film; how and why?
10. There are numerous sex scenes and sexual imagery; often they are linked with violence--during the siege of Belgrade, or in Marko and Natalija’s relationship above the cellar. What is the significance of this connection?
11. How does the director use music in the film--from the almost frenetic folk/gypsy band that follows Marko throughout the film (in stylized form during his rise to fame as a poet) to the use of the famous German war song "Lilli Marleen" as an accompaniment to the occupation of Yugoslavia by the German forces and to the funeral of Tito?
12. Marko is portrayed as a great poet--the theme of art about art. This finds a parallel in the film within the film, i.e., the story of Marko the partisan and the "martyrdom" of Crny. How is Kusturica examining the theme of art here and elsewhere in the film?
13. The distortion of time and place, both literally and figuratively, are central to the structure of the narrative--Marko even slows down time so that it seems as if less time has passed for the people in the cellar. How is this important in the film's message?
14.Discuss the use of madness or insanity as a motif throughout the film–for example, Ivan, Natalija's brother, the people in the lunatic asylum all point to this motif.
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EMIR
KUSTURICA Born
in Sarajevo in 1954, Emir Kusturica was already making short films
by the time he was in high school. While attending the Academy of
Performing Arts in Prague his film "Guernica" was awarded first place
at the Students' Film Festival in Karlovy Vary. Kusturica returned
to Sarajevo upon graduation where he began filming made-for-TV movies,
winning best director for his presentation of Ivo Andric's "Café Titanic."
International acclaim came with his first feature film, "Do You Remember
Dolly Bell" in 1982, followed by the Academy Award for Best Foreign
Film in 1985 for "When Father Was Away on Business" and the ensuing
"Time of the Gypsies" in 1988. Kusturica taught directing at the School
of Performing Arts in Sarajevo and Columbia University in New York
then went on to film his first English-language film, the cooly received
"Arizona Dream," with Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway in 1993. In 1995
came the epic "Underground" for which Kusturica received equal amounts
of harsh criticism and adoring praise. Kusturica's most recent works
are the 1998 comedy, "Black Cat, White Cat," and the film adaption
of D.M. Thomas' "The White Hotel" still in production. Filmography:
Short films: GUERNICA (1978) TV films: THE BRIDES ARE COMING (1979)
CAFE TITANIC (1980) Feature films: DO YOU REMEMBER DOLLY BELL (1981)
WHEN FATHER WAS AWAY ON BUSINESS (1985) TIME OF THE GYPSIES (1988)
ARIZONA DREAM (1993) UNDERGROUND (1995) BLACK CAT, WHITE CAT (1998)
THE WHITE HOTEL (2001)
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The information found on this page has been in large part compiled by Richele Brafford '01. The site is maintained by Richele and Todd Armstrong. All materials are intended solely for academic purposes.
Last modified: February 12, 2001.