BLACK CAT, WHITE CAT
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. October Films Director: Emir Kusturica Writer: Emir Kusturica, Gordon Michic Cast: Severdzan Bajram, Florijan Ajdini, Salija Ibraimova, Branka Katic, Srdjan Todorovic, Zabit Memedov, Sabri Sulejman, Jasar Destani, Ljubica Adzovic, Miki Manojlovic, Predrag Lakovic, Stojan Sotirov.
You might be tempted to walk out during the first twenty minutes of "Black Cat, White Cat." The opening scene, perhaps meant to develop one of the principal characters, comes off as largely irrelevant and all too casually paced. But remain in your seats. You're in for a treat. "Black Cat, White Cat" is one of the most energetic pictures you'll ever see, featuring unrelenting physical comedy: pratfalls, vulgar jokes and repugnant situations, as well as oodles of ethnic folklore. Emir Kusturica, arguably the most important director of films in the Serbo-Croatian language, demonstrates his resolute love of gypsies in his native land with a frenetic burlesque that his previous work, "Underground," barely suggests. The Bosnian-born filmmaker--who in 1995, after some disastrous reviews of "Underground" swore off films-- has come back with a vengeance in this pulsating French- German-Yugoslav production now scheduled to open commercially in the fall of 1999.
Following up on his Cannes-winning "Time of the Gypsies" which Kusturica made ten years back, "Black Cat, White Cat" follows the lives of two feuding gypsy families living on the banks of the Danube River. The families are led by two 80- year-olds who have not seen each other in twenty-five years, though they remain good friends. Grga Pitic (Sabri Sulejmani) and Zarije Destinov (Zabit Mehmedovski) are big industrialists, one owning a cement plant, the other heading a garbage dump, each with a son involved in a predicament. Zarije's boy Matko (Bajram Severdzan), is a racketeer planning to rob a train of its fuel. To fund the operation he contacts Grga. The operation does not pan out: Matko is double-crossed by Dadan (Srdjan Todorovic) to whom he now owes a debt. Dadan, a manic, coke-snorting gangster, demands that Matko marry off his son Zare (Florijan Adjini) to Dadan's dwarfish daughter, Afrodita (Salija Ibraimova). When Afrodita demurs, insisting that she will wait for a man she can love, she is unceremoniously dumped into a well until she reluctantly agrees to the match. For his part Zare has fallen for the attractive barmaid, Ida (Branka Katic), whom he follows around like a puppy, but upon Ida's shoulders falls the need to instruct the callow young man in the mysteries of love.
"Black Cat, White Cat" features a hilarious, extended wedding scene, full of throbbing gypsy music, a scene in which the hugely entertaining Srdan Todorovic walks away with the movie. A perpetual motion machine, Dadan is all motility, sniffing coke, waving his arms about like a 20-year- old American kid in an acid-rock disco. He alternately threatens his opponents and celebrates his daughter's nuptials with all the frenzy of a cheetah on speed, ultimately gaining his comeuppance as he falls through the floor of the local outhouse.
The film combines Marx-Brothers antics with Fellini-esque scenes (including a repeated vista of a pig eating a dilapidated car and gaggles of geese, a dog, and two cats). Kusturica's camera people, Thierry Arbogast and Michel Amathieu do a matchless job of capturing fetching expression on the faces of the mostly unprofessional actors as they plunge headlong into life. One darkly comic situation centers on the two octogenarians who, believed to be dead, are hidden in the attic under mounds of ice so that the wedding can proceed without the customary 40 days of mourning. The subtext that runs through the picture is Kusturica's implied belief that ethnics around the world are not only similar in temperament but they are also the folks who really know how to live.
Not Rated. Running Time: 130 minutes. (C) 1999 Harvey Karten
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