The Wounds

Belgrade, 1991. Two boys, Pinki and Švaba, grow up in the same building. The country goes to war, the television says something different every evening, and Kure, the gangster from the neighbourhood, starts giving them work. Within a few years they are both carrying guns. What Srdan Dragojevic does is refuse to present crime as an adventure and tie it instead to the war itself: these boys never go to the front, but the moral collapse the war produces raises them in the city. Its hardest idea concerns television, showing directly what a programme that turns criminals into celebrities does to the young. Because it described the state of the country so plainly, the film set off a considerable argument in Serbia when it appeared. Its flaws: there is a great deal of violence, some scenes run longer than they need to, and the storytelling scatters in places. Who it is for: viewers who want films about the interior of the Balkan wars. Who it is not for: anyone avoiding hard violence and a hopeless close.