Ko to tamo peva (1980)
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Ko to tamo peva Movie Review
Ko to tamo peva (Who’s Singin’ Over There?) is a 1980 Serbian comedy film directed by Slobodan Sijan and starring Pavle Vuisic and Bata Stojkovic. It’s a classic of Serbian cinema.
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“Dad, I would like to do this.
Dad would like that too, son“
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The film tells a story about a group of passengers traveling by bus to Belgrade in 1941, during the last days of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, just before the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia. Written by Dusan Kovacevic and directed by Slobodan Sijan, this brilliant duo delivered their first masterpiece in 1980, two years before their other seminal work ‘Maratonci trce pocasni krug’.
Both of these movies are insanely quotable and popular in all the former Yugoslavian countries to this day, but they are very colorful comedies that are culturally specific to the point that anybody living outside this region would have a hard time understanding them. But for the Balkans, they are both incredible and it is actually very difficult to choose which of the two is the better one.
Whereas the later film was more sophisticated in themes and better realized in its characters, Ko to tamo peva is undeniably a more entertaining and more cinematic viewing experience. There is something inherently iconic in the imagery of this bus that is going on its last doomsday trip and is filled with so many interesting, diverse personalities. The bus iconography coupled with the road trip elements made for one unforgettable picture.
Most praise should be directed toward the score. There is this famous song in the film called Za Beograd, which was sung by the two Roma boys, who are themselves passengers on this bus. They are characters in their own right and through them we get to see racism from Serbs when it comes to gypsies (they are accused of being thieves), but they also act as the movie’s narrative device.
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Through this extremely memorable song they narrate the events of the film sporadically, but whenever they appeared they brought the level of epic, cinematic quality to the story that made it more ambitious and artistic. The older woman clad in black is another symbol, clearly representing impending doom and death. This all culminates with that powerful, unforgettable, very dark ending that definitely could have been foreseen, but it still packed an emotional punch as it was so effectively brutal.
Ko to tamo peva is highly effective at depicting all these different people who are brought together on this trip, but are all so inherently unique, every single one of them representing a different facet of Serbian people in all their worst tendencies. This was yet another tragicomedy that fully encompasses what Serbian cinema was all about in the late 20th century – depicting the pain of the people, but through unmistakably specific, effective black humor.
Bata Stojkovic was once again the standout. He represented perfectly that Serbian narrow-minded, provincial person who acts as if he is better than others, but is just as bad or even worse than everybody else. Pavle Vuisic was terrific as the bus conductor and Aleksandar Bercek was phenomenal as his slow-minded son. How the two eventually parted ways was the single most emotional moment in the story.
Tasko Nacic as the hunter was expectedly buffoonish while Dragan Nikolic was the most unlikable and arrogant of the bunch. The acting from this great ensemble cast is uniformly fantastic while each character represents something – a clueless young couple moving to the city for a better life, a proud older man who was in the war, the gypsy outcasts and so on and so forth.
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Most of these characters individually did not get the best treatment as they needed more development overall, but as a group they were pleasantly eclectic and fun. The scene with a peasant complaining about his tough situation was suitably funny and tragic at the same time. Thematically speaking, the movie isn’t as smart as ‘Maratonci’ and it’s arguably not as funny, but it still has its terrific, unforgettable lines of dialogue that are quotable to this day.
Ko to tamo peva (Who’s Singin’ Over There?) is one of the classics of Serbian cinema. Wonderfully written and directed, the movie also benefits from a superb ensemble cast with every actor delivering a terrific performance. Its diverse, colorful cast of characters made for such a memorable movie. The dark, brutal ending is iconic and so is the song sung by two gypsies that serves as the narration for the film’s story. The imagery of this bus on its last doomsday trip alone made for one iconic, highly cinematic movie.
My Rating – 4.5
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