Cabaret Balkan

Goran Paskaljevic's 1998 film takes place across a single night in Belgrade in the mid-nineties. The paths of some twenty characters cross; a chain that begins with a small traffic accident grows through the night into violence. The film is adapted from a play by Dejan Dukovski. The structure is episodic: each encounter is a scene in itself and triggers the next. What emerges is not a plot but a state of mind, a tension everyone carries while the war is never directly seen. There is humour, but it brings no relief; the jokes arrive exactly where the violence is about to break. The film was read differently inside and outside Serbia: some found a sharp diagnosis of the war's social effect, others criticised it for presenting Balkan violence as inevitable. It won the FIPRESCI prize at Venice. Who it's for: those interested in Balkan cinema and ensemble narratives set across one night. Who it's not for: viewers troubled by constant and sudden violence; the film builds its rhythm on it.