Otac na Sluzbenom Putu

Rating: 60%

(http://www.kustu.com)

Also Known As:

Year:

1985

Country:

Predominant Genre:

Drama

Director:

Outstanding Performances:

Premiss:

A careless remark about the newspaper cartoon is enough for Mesha to join many arrested unfortunates. His family is now forced to cope with the situation and wait for his release from prison.

Themes:

Alienation | Compassion | Destiny | Dialectical materialism | Emotional repression | Political Correctness | Self-expression | Totalitarianism

Similar (in Plot, Theme or Style) to:

Review Format:

DVD

[When Father was Away on Business]

A critique of the former Communistic ways of the former Yugoslavia from the point of view of a child. This boy sees all in the adults’ behaviour and does not always understand what he sees. Yet, its effect on him is profound, as he becomes a somnambulist in search of escape from Dialectical materialism.

For having published a satirical cartoon of Karl Marx as a Stalinist, the eponymous father is jailed in a work camp for two years. Yet, this is never clearly stated on any indictment as if to say it aloud would be to reveal that Stalin was not a true Marxist but the demagogue he actually was.

The issues explored are the effects on his family of this father’s absence and the fact that his relatives are accomplices to his incarceration. Such a paranoid polity makes genuine human relationships impossible and none work here too well.

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Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute this posting in any format; provided mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.