The Rhythm of Crime

In Zagreb old houses are being pulled down and larger blocks put up in their place. A teacher living in one of these houses agrees to share it with a stranger. The man is devoted to statistics and claims he can foretell crimes by statistical analysis. When a murder he has foretold does not take place, he insists that the whole town will pay for it unless a balance is restored, and he leaves. The film was adapted from a book and draws its tension not from an event but from the claim itself. The black and white photography and the neighbourhood being demolished give the account a constant unease. Ivica Vidovic plays the lead in Zoran Tadic’s eighty nine minute Yugoslav film, completed in 1981.