Search - Stalingrad / Pretty Village, Pretty Flame on DVD

Tears of laughter. Tears of horror.

juze | Cerkno Slovenia | 08/15/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"OK, first of all, Pretty Village Pretty Flame. The translation sucks, but then again, translating this movie sucks. Because unlike most people who will (hopefully) read this, I actually understand Serbian and let me tell you, when it comes to cursing, no language can beat it. The curses, which play an important role in this movie, making it both hilarious and tragic, are of truly epic proportions. I'm not allowed to use profanities in this review, so I won't. In a way, the movie is much like the speech Madeline Albright gave to Serbs during the NATO bombing: It makes you roll on the floor in laughter, just like you rolled on the floor when you heard her speak (her Serbian is the stuff of legends. Worse than average Italian English.). It also makes you cry because she, who once lived among them, is killing them. Just like in the movie. Friends killing friends. Well, anyway, the movie is well worth seeing, perhaps even more so if you understand the language. And there is one scene which is so tragic and yet so romantic... When this guy is wounded and knows he is dying and is preparing to shoot himself, he asks this (female) American journalist who's trapped in the tunnel along with them for, as he puts it:"Kiss for dead man." The kiss that follows is waaay better than all kisses in the entire history of movies. So full of love and you can see the journalist saying don't pull the trigger with her eyes, her face, her whole body and soul... gives me the shivers every time I see it. As I said before, you may not get the whole movie due to language barrier. But what remains still easily earns 5 stars.The other movie, Stalingrad, well, I (obviously) couldn't identify with it as well as I could with Pretty Village Pretty Flame, but it's still amazing. Ryan perhaps had better special effects. Big friggin deal. Thin Red Line is more poetic. So what. This is war. The complete and unabridged edition. No gun salute. No folded flags. No old man with a granddaughter with a nicely rounded granddaughter on a French cemetary with an American flag. Buy it. Watch it. Cry. You'll feel relieved afterwards."