Word: kusturica
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TIME OF THE GYPSIES Directed by Emir Kusturica...
...this reality that Emir Kusturica depicts brilliantly in When Father was Away on Business, winner of the best picture award at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival...
Able to walk the fine line between a bland documentary and an overdone "epic saga," Kusturica tells the story of a Sarajevo family's struggle during the consolidation of the Yugoslavian state under Tito. The story is told in part through the eyes of Malik, the son of an aspiring Communist Party officer. Malik's Father's "business trip" (as a forced laborer) begins when a political cartoon appears in the party newspaper. The cartoon shows Karl Marx writing at a desk, with a picture of Tito on the wall behind him. Father--known as Mesa in the film--mentions...
...Kusturica is prudent in his use of Malik as commentator, offering a refreshing break from films like Stephen Spielberg's, which are told almost completely through the eyes of children. The part of the objective observer is played by Malik's bespectacled older brother, Mirza, who concerns himself solely with the outcomes of events. His detached perspective suggests that of the filmmaker, a suggestion further enhanced by his fascination with cameras, and with what little cinema he can find in backward Sarajevo...
...field, keeping both the foreground and the background of the picture in focus. This technique--pioneered by Orson Welles in Citizen Kane--is known as "deep focus." The use of deep focus lends a strong sense of realism to the film, portraying simultaneously the characters and their environment. Kusturica also imports some techniques from the genre of film noir, especially the notion of the woman-as-temptress (in this case the mistress), and the practice of photographing her image in mirrors...