Toma

Dragan Bjelogrlic's 2021 film tells the life of the Serbian folk singer Toma Zdravkovic. Zdravkovic was remembered as much for how he lived as for his songs: bohemian, disorganised, in debt and constantly on stage. The usual trap of the biographical film is partly avoided here. The film does not present the rise of a career as a success story but takes as its subject the distance between the man on stage and the man off it. Milan Maric's performance works without sliding into impersonation. Music is the spine. Zdravkovic's songs form a map of feeling for Yugoslavia in the period before it broke apart, and the film conveys that context without stating it. It drew large audiences in Serbia. Who it's for: those interested in Balkan popular music and in musician biographies. Who it's not for: viewers unfamiliar with Zdravkovic's music; the emotional weight the songs carry does much of the film's work, and without that context the effect thins.