gavin6942 Matko is a small time hustler, living by the river Danube with his 17 year old son Zare. After a failed business deal he owes money to the much more successful gangster Dadan. Dadan has a sister, Afrodita, that he desperately wants to see get married so they strike a deal: Zare is to marry her.I love it when films reference other films and build off of them. Here, Grga Pitić is obsessed with the last line in the film Casablanca, "this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship", which he compulsively watches on his TV set. It is so great.While maybe not the huge success "Underground" was, this is a worthy film, with plenty of dark humor and great scenes. The man hanging with an umbrella? Only here could that be funny. And then mixing in gangsters and gypsy music? Incredible.

Terence Frederick Let me tell you before I review that I don't understand the movie's language but still loved it. I might/ should have missed lots of the language/regional stuffs present in the movie since I'm not Serbian.Emir Kusturica takes the imagination to the brink. He really did understand the life of gypsies for he has taken the movie so well. The music is cool to me (my two favorite Danube songs - Blue and Waves). The screenplay is comically written that scripts love at teens, miseries at middle age and alcoholism at old-age with two cats. Srdjan Todorovic is a superb actor (He makes me laugh every-time I see 'm on screen in this movie -- "Pitbull... Terrier") and his slapstick were too good. Few issues (just 'remote'-st ones) : The movie story doesn't make sense and movie is too much chaotic and not everyone understands the movie.

tedg This was recommended by a friend, as the best film she knows. This is an intelligent woman, so I endured some frustrating months trying to find it in the US, finally to see it on an overseas trip.It wasn't a great experience for me, excepting two elements. My guess is that I am not from the south of European as my friend is. The stereotypes that are exploited here are simply unknown to me, and all the humor depends on exploiting the twinge that real stereotypes elicit. Also, as an American, I get no reward from the knowledge that this is genuinely human from a region that was at the time deep in the most depraved state genocide. The distance between civilization and barbarity in this area of Europe was little more than the distance I often drive to visit a movie theater.Lacking that, what I get is zaniness unconnected to my sense of self and dread. So the zaniness taken out its situation has to stand on its own. It doesn't for me, because it is not handled as a cinematic value, rather just a color, a tone. If you have not seen this, it is a sort of "Cannery Row" based on the foibles of Balkan Gypsies: twisted families, peculiar macho drives, love theft and lies.There are two very lovely things here. One is the liquid environment. The locations and how they are handled is extremely cinematic. Everything is in motion: gaggles of birds, other animals, boats on the river, an old gangster in a raggedy vehicle and of course the troop and camera. The fluidity of this is far more valuable than the humor, at least for me.The other lovely thing is a seduction scene that may be one of the most engaging in cinema. A quirky young woman has her eye on a young man. Like all men in this world, he is a nitwit, but is young and clean. She leads him to a field of sunflowers, where she romps while stripping and enticing by running away. Her teasing giggle is profoundly attractive, and I suppose that this one scene must have percolated for a long time. (In all later scenes, the quirkiness of the girl is gone, and she plays simply a love interest.)Oddly, the cats of the title are the clumsiest and least integrated bit.Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

ntulini-1 As all films that are deeply rooted in a territory, it is difficult to appreciate all it can deliver. For those like me that are not from the Balkans it is merely impossible to appreciate the perception of gypsies in those areas, how they live how they see life.Starting from this assumption that in a normal situation would undermine the perception of all viewers, i think that not only this film is hilarious, but is extremely creative and with an aestethics that is very peculiar. Faces, scenarios, plots and scenes deliver a combination of unique taste, colours, joy and vitality that have little in common with Western society. Virtually in every scene there is a domestic animal that is part of the frame and is there to deliver a sense of chaotic enthusiasm.The story itself is very simple, but it is delivered with extreme originality, with a compelling soundtrack and with some frames that are now part of the classic images of the cinema like the man hanged at the barrier with the umbrella and the band tied-up along the big trees.My favourite scene is at the end when Dadan Karambolo uses the white ducks to clean himself up from the filth. I wish I were able to generate ideas like this.I am not sure whether gypsies are a problem in the Balkans, but what the film delivers, although through a caricature, is a people full of creativity and that, at their way, can enjoy life better than a lot of us.