[CIRKUS COLUMBIA
screens Thursday May 10th at 6:45 pm and Friday May 11th at 9:45 pm
at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
It's the early nineties, and 20 years
after fleeing to Germany to avoid war, Divko Buntić (Miki
Manojlović) returns to his home town in the now former Yugoslavia a
wealthy man with a pretty young girlfriend (Jelena Stupljanin), a
fancy car, and a cat he considers his good luck charm. One of his
first actions is to bribe a local official to evict his wife Lucija
(Mira Furlan) and son Martin (Boris Ler) from the home they've been
living in ever since Divko left. He then sets about trying to drive a
wedge between Martin and his mother by offering his son keys to the
house. Martin, however, is more interested in his shortwave radio,
and perhaps his father's girlfriend, than in any kind of
reconciliation with this man he barely knows.
Like his Academy Award winning debut film NO MAN'S
LAND, director Danis Tanović's CIRKUS COLUMBIA
uses an intimate, human story to comment on larger issues. We see
Divko determined to stick it to those he feels have slighted him
(even when the slights are more imagined than real) and certain in
the power of his wealth to get him what he wants. Many of the
supporting characters we meet are nursing grudges of their own, or
else chasing after the bribes and rewards Divko so casually tosses
around. Meanwhile, almost everyone dismisses the signs of impending
war that threaten to make everyone's plans moot, regardless of wealth
or station.
