War Live (2000)
Belgrade, 1999. Producer Sergei and his film crew are in a disastrous situation - the film they're making is under threat - there's no money, the crew are dissatisfied - and NATO bombing is just around the corner. Then a member of the State Security Service (Mileta) comes looking for American co-producer Harvey. Anxious and worried, in the midst of the bombing that's begun, Sergei hides Harvey from what he thinks is awaiting him - arrest. During the night, he thinks up a plan. He announces the start of filming on a new, patriotic film - in which the main role will be played by Harvey. The plan works - the State supports the film and Mileta, as the State's representative, joins the crew. However, the underlying conflict between Mileta and Sergei explodes during the first screening. Mileta accuses them of being artists, and not being patriots.
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Reviews
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.
The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
The first two thirds of the film were excellent and most watchable. Sadly, the editing of the last part is rushed and leaves one confused, unsure of what it really is trying to say.Anyone who is fearful of this being a propaganda movie will be happy to learn that the central (bad guy) character represents the prevailing regime. I cannot possibly agree that it is a Serbian nationalist flick.For a glimpse of what it may have been like to be in Belgrade whilst bombs were dropping around you, this is a great and interesting portrayal. It may not have been the bombs themselves causing havoc, but politics, opinions, love, hate, alcohol etc. The drunken scene in the restaurant with the bombing in the background is terrific.
I can't believe this terrible film was made by the same people who made Lepa Sela Lepo Gore. Watch that and skip this. The plot is muddled and the characters are mostly two-dimensional stereotypes. I suspect the editor went on vacation halfway through the film because quick, choppy cuts start to appear that only confuse matters rather than elucidate them. The ending doesn't make sense either.This is predominantly a propaganda film made so Serbs can feel sorry for themselves and vilify America for the NATO bombings of 1999. They do this by perpetuating lies about Serbs being our allies during WWII, claiming the whole world is unjustly against them, and completely ignoring everything said and done by Slobodan Milosevic, like waging war on three neighboring countries. They seem intent on making a political film but only show a few seconds of Milosevic on a TV screen with no sound. A nationalist agenda obviously superseded any consideration of art which was not the case with Lepa Sela.Regrettably, I recommended this film to a teacher when it played last week at the Seattle International Film Festival. He also cited the bad editing and confusing plot, and I had to apologize for the bad advice. You've been warned.
This film, which was Yugoslavia's nomination for best foreign language film of 2001, starts as an entertaining comedy about the making of an underfunded independent film in Yugoslavia.Later it turns into more of a drama, but somehow I was left behind at the transition. The acting is probably better than I realized at the time, because the actors were convincingly bad actors in the film within the film, which is likely harder than it looks. Seen at Cinequest (the San Jose, CA film festival) on 2/22/2002.
In spite of difficult working ambient this movie shows big and maximum producers support in making it. I like the story. This movie could expect good distribution worldwide.