We Are Not Angels

Nikola keeps a tally of the women he sleeps with in Belgrade, learns that the girl he spent one night with is pregnant, and runs. Then the film's trick arrives: an angel and a devil sit on his shoulders, both visible on screen, arguing with each other and playing rock music. It is Srdan Dragojevic's first film and became an unexpected box office phenomenon in Serbia in the early nineties. In a country under the shadow of war, here was a film speaking street language, driven by music and addressed entirely to the young. It is remembered as a generational picture. Nikola Kojo plays the lead, with two separate actors as the angel and the devil, and their scenes are the most quoted part of it. Its flaws: the woman exists largely as the cause of the plot, some of the humour rests on crudeness, and the visual tricks have not aged well. Who it is for: viewers curious about the cinema of the former Yugoslavia and generational comedy. Who it is not for: anyone wanting subtlety.