And, indeed, I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings? Well, which is better?---Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Fyodor Dostoevsky ---Notes from Underground Even now, so many years later, all this is somehow a very evil memory. I have many evil memories now, but ... hadn’t I better end my “Notes” here? I believe I made a mistake in beginning to write them, anyway I have felt ashamed all the time I’ve been writing this story; so it’s hardly literature so much as a corrective punishment. Why, to tell long stories, showing how I have spoiled my life through morally rotting in my corner, through lack of fitting environment, through divorce from real life, and rankling spite in my underground world, would certainly not be interesting; a novel needs a hero, and all the traits for an anti-hero are expressly gathered together here, and what matters most, it all produces an unpleasant impression, for we are...
Hope
To be human is to be a miracle of evolution conscious of its own miraculousness — a consciousness beautiful and bittersweet, for we have paid for it with a parallel awareness not only of our fundamental improbability but of our staggering fragility, of how physiologically precarious our survival is and how psychologically vulnerable our sanity. To make that awareness bearable, we have evolved a singular faculty that might just be the crowning miracle of our consciousness: hope.--
Erich Fromm
Emir Kusturica’s surrealist epic that chronicles the tragic disintegration of Yugoslavia through the lens of a twenty-year lie.
If Fellini had shot a war movie, it might resemble “Underground.” Emir Kusturica’s epic black comedy about Yugoslavia from 1941 to 1992 is a three-hour steamroller circus that leaves the viewer dazed and exhausted, but mightily impressed. Its energy, coupled with its ringing (if simplistic) condemnation of the years of communism and the current war, make it one of the most emotionally engaging and exhilarating films at Cannes.
*Underground* is structured in three distinct acts, each representing a pivotal era in Yugoslav history: World War II through the Cold War to the final collapse of the nation in the 1990s.
Emir Kusturica establishes the freewheeling tone of Underground from its opening seconds, with the film roaring into life on the boisterous din of a brass band that doesn’t so much march through Belgrade’s streets as it sprints through them while blaring its music in an accelerated triple-time whirl.
The band plays at the behest of Marko (Miki Manojlović), who celebrates his friend, Blacky (Lazar Ristovski), joining the communist party. The next morning, Nazis invade Yugoslavia, bombs falling on Belgrade as Marko has sex with a prostitute and Blacky eats breakfast, only acknowledging the German invasion through irritated mutterings, as if the Luftwaffe flying overhead were merely loud upstairs neighbors. A nearby zoo monitored by Marko’s brother, Ivan (Slavko Štimac), is destroyed, leaving most animals dead and Ivan sobbing as he catatonically cradles a young chimpanzee.
The manic intensity of this opening stretch prefigures a film that maintains its sense of sweeping, grandiose farce even as the action narrows around a basement hideout that Marko sets up in his grandfather’s house and uses to shelter family and friends from the Nazis. Yet this ostensible altruism turns to exploitation when the war comes to a close and Marko, seeing opportunities for financial gain and power over others, keeps his loved ones, including Blacky, in the literal dark, staging an illusion of a never-ending war and keeping them locked underground for their “safety.” Afer Josip Tito takes power, Marko establishes himself as a key figure in the communist government thanks to the number of weapons he can supply the regime—weapons built by the people in his basement who assume they’re crafting them for the resistance. As generations are born and come of age underground, the hideout gradually turns into its own kind of makeshift hamlet. It takes on the properties of a demented Plato’s cave, where the illusion of a still-existent Nazi occupation keeps people fervently hoping for the communist rule they have no idea is actually in place.
Kusturica paints a caustic portrait of his homeland in a constant state of flux, always subservient to whatever strongman happens to be in charge at the moment. Archival footage shows invading Nazis receiving a warm welcome in cities like Zagreb, while the iron-fisted rule of Tito hangs over the film’s middle section. Various characters embody the oscillating loyalties of the easily duped, none more visibly or comically than Marko’s lover, Natalija (Mirjana Joković), a two-bit actress who’s giving performances in German before the Nazis have even settled in Yugoslavia and responds to the murder of her Wehrmacht lover by instantly switching sides to Marko’s partisans. Marko himself represents the internal forces who exploit the constant political upheaval to their own material gain, further repressing his beleaguered countrymen.
Kusturica’s film is a randy peepshow, a thorny docu-tangle of real-life horror and magical realist wish fulfillments. It explains how a country destroyed itself from the inside, and it exists to show us how not to repeat these mistakes. The people (and animals) in Kusturica’s requiem are perpetually restless—there’s an idea here that if they stop moving, they would cease to exist. Underground’s final images are some of the finest ever committed to film. In death, Marko and Blacky are reunited one more time and their block party breaks off from the rest of the world. “There is no war until a brother kills a brother.” That’s Yugoslavia’s political and philosophical conundrum in a nutshell, but Kusturica intends his humanist masterwork as a time capsule for all nations. When does the party end and war begin? It doesn’t have to
Dušan Kovačević is arguably the most influential playwright, screenwriter, and satirical voice in the history of modern Balkan theatre and cinema.
His work is characterized by a razor-sharp, pitch-black sense of humor, blending the grotesque, the absurd, and the deeply tragic to diagnose the political and social neuroses of the region. He doesn’t just write comedies; he writes forensic examinations of collective paranoia, historical trauma, and systemic absurdity.
The Big Three Cinematic Masterpieces
If you look at the pinnacle of golden-age Yugoslav cinema, Kovačević's pen is behind almost all of its defining moments, frequently collaborating with director Slobodan Šijan to capture the cultural psyche.
1. Who's Singin' Over There? (Ko to tamo peva, 1980)
Set on a ramshackle Krstić family bus bound for Belgrade on the eve of the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, this classic functions as a perfect Aristotelian unity of time and place. The eccentric, mismatched passengers form a microcosm of a naive, fragmented society rolling completely unaware toward historical catastrophe.
2. The Marathon Family (Maratonci trče počasni krug, 1982)
Adapted from Kovačević's own 1973 play, this tar-black comedy centers on the Topalović family—five generations of undertakers who run a funeral monopoly and treat death as a ruthless family enterprise. It remains one of the most quotable, deeply cynical allegories of power, generational decay, and capitalist greed ever put to film.
3. Balkan Spy (Balkanski špijun, 1984)
Co-directed by Kovačević himself, this film features a monumental performance by Danilo "Bata" Stojković as Ilija Čvorović, an ex-convict whose deep-seated ideological trauma turns into a full-blown case of paranoid vigilance. When an ordinary capitalist emigrant rents a room from him, Ilija becomes convinced he has unmasked a dangerous foreign agent, leading to an spiraling, claustrophobic nightmare of surveillance and self-delusion.
The Grand Allegory: Underground (1995)
Kovačević also penned the script for Emir Kusturica’s Palme d'Or-winning epic Underground (adapted from Kovačević’s play Spring in January).
The film serves as his ultimate historical thesis: a group of people are hidden in a cellar during WWII to manufacture weapons, but their cell leader keeps them isolated for decades after the war ends, manipulating them into believing the conflict is still raging upstairs so he can profit off their labor. It is a staggering, chaotic metaphor for manipulation, state-manufactured reality, and the tragic cycle of Balkan history.
The Core Theme: Across his entire body of work—whether it’s a family of undertakers or a paranoid citizen building a home bunker—Kovačević excels at showing how historical and political forces twist ordinary human behavior into something beautifully, terrifyingly absurd.
Overview
Underground (Serbo-Croatian: Podzemlje) is a surrealist war comedy-drama that traces the history of Yugoslavia from the beginning of World War II to the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s. Spanning over 50 years, the film is known for its "magical realism," "Balkan brass" soundtrack by Goran Bregović, and its operatic, chaotic energy.
Narrative Structure
The film is divided into three distinct chapters, reflecting the stages of the nation's life:
Part I: War (1941)
The story begins with the Nazi bombing of Belgrade. Two roguish friends, Marko and Blacky, are black marketeers and Communist partisans. When the Germans occupy the city, Marko hides a group of refugees (including Blacky and his family) in a large cellar under his grandfather’s house. While the refugees manufacture weapons for the resistance, Marko remains above ground to act as their liaison.
Part II: Cold War (1944–1961)
After WWII ends, Marko—now a high-ranking official in Tito’s government—realizes he can maintain his power and wealth by keeping the people in the cellar. He deceives them for 20 years, using sirens and fake news broadcasts to convince them that the Nazis are still occupying Yugoslavia. He sells the weapons they manufacture on the international black market, effectively enslaving his best friend and his countrymen in a literal "underground" while he lives as a national hero above.
Part III: War (1990s)
The deception finally collapses. The "underground" inhabitants emerge into the sunlight only to find that their country is tearing itself apart in the Yugoslav Wars. In a surreal and tragic conclusion, the characters wander through a landscape of fratricide and destruction, eventually meeting in a dreamlike afterlife where they feast on a piece of land that breaks away and floats into the sea.
Themes and Symbolism
The Cellar as Allegory: The underground bunker serves as a metaphor for the isolation and state-sponsored deception of the Tito era. It suggests that the "unity" of Yugoslavia was built on a foundation of lies and hidden history.
The Three Archetypes:
Marko: Represents the corrupt political elite who profit from the manipulation of history.
Blacky: Represents the naive, boisterous, and violently patriotic spirit of the people.
Natalija: Represents opportunism, shifting her loyalty between whoever holds power (from a Nazi officer to Blacky to Marko).
"Once Upon a Time There Was a Country": The film’s recurring refrain and alternative title highlights its nature as a tragic fairy tale for a nation that no longer exists on any map.
Legacy and Impact
Today, Underground is widely considered one of the most important films of the 1990s. It is praised for:
Cinematography: The chaotic, sprawling set pieces and the use of animals (from the bombed Belgrade Zoo) wandering through ruins.
Music: The energetic brass band music became an international sensation, defining the "Balkan Sound" for global audiences.
Historical Breadth: It remains one of the few cinematic works that attempts to synthesize the entire 20th-century experience of the South Slavs into a single narrative
