Frequently Bought Together
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Product details
|
Reviews
Product Description
A comedy from the director of 'Underground' and 'Arizona Dream', Emir Kusturica's 'Black Cat White Cat', Silver Lion Winner at the Venice Film Festival 1998, is a riotous mix of farce, romance and crime. Set within a community of gypsy people, it tells a story of dodgy deals, family ties, young love and magical occurences. Zare is in love with beautiful Ida but his crooked father Matko, having botched up a black market deal, intends to marry him off to the sister of a powerful gangster - a woman so tiny that her nickname is Ladybird. Beautifully filmed on the banks of the Danube this colourful comedy is crammed with spectacle, incident and the powerful music of Emir Kusturica's famous travelling gypsy band
Product Description
United Kingdom released, PAL/Region 2 DVD: LANGUAGES: Serbian ( Dolby Digital 2.0 ), English ( Subtitles ), WIDESCREEN, SPECIAL FEATURES: Biographies, Interactive Menu, Scene Access, Trailer(s), SYNOPSIS: This colourful, frantic and farcical comedy of Gypsy life centres around two octagenarian friends and feuding rivals, Grga and Zarije. One is boss of the garbage dumps, the other heads of the cement factories, but both have problems with their kin. Zarije's good-for-nothing son, Matko, plans a train heist that will finally bring him respect and wealth, but is forced to ask help from Grga. He loses it all in a double-cross by his partner, the manic, coke-snorting "businessman-patriot" Dadan, who demands that he pay the debt by marrying off his son Zare to Dadan's headstrong sister, Afrodita. Complicating the plot even further, the innocent Zare has fallen for comely barmaid Ida, who soon initiates him into the mysteries of love... Featuring authentic Gypsy music and a cast largely made-up of real-life gypsies, Black Cat, White Cat is a real-tour-de-force and confirms Kusturica's reputation as a director with an incredible talent for the surreal. SCREENED/AWARDED AT: European Film Awards, Goya Awards, Venice Film Festival, ...Black Cat, White Cat (1998) ( Chat noir, chat blanc ) ( Schwarze Katze, weißer Kater )
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:DVD
This is a riot of a film - as one has come to expect from Kusturica. Filled with the joy of life, it is set in a wild Balkan Gypsy milieu of gangsters and their bling, dwarf brides "waiting for Mr Right", gallows humour (quite literally) and a father who refuses to stay dead long enough to make it to his own funeral. With characters and action like that, it is a million miles away from the worthiness and dullness of some European cinema, and refuses point-blank to take itself seriously even for one minute. It taught me the secret of writing pure comedy - the behaviour must be so outrageous as to be utterly beyond belief - for life itself has a habit of turning what might be tragic into comic relief.
A Roma man owes a debt to Dadan, a gypsy mafioso surrounded by girls in white body-stockings and eye-popping make-up. In exchange for cancelling the debt, Dadan forces him to marry off his 17-year-old son to Afrodita, his stunted sister. The son has other ideas and another girlfriend, and searches for excuse after excuse not to marry her; while Afrodita equally has plans of her own. Into all this chaos comes the man's father, a snaggle-toothed veteran swindler now retired to a preposterously upholstered bed, who has a habit of stopping the show at critical moments to ensure the reluctant bride and groom are allowed to go their own way.
Mostly in the language of the Roma but occasionally lapsing into Serbo-Croat, the film detaches the word "Balkan" from "balkanisation" and proves that despite the upheavals of the last fifteen years Yugoslavia can become known for something other than blown-apart houses and desperate refugees tugging at western heart-strings. It also paints Roma life in bold, shocking colours; there are no heroes or villains in the story, just human beings as they are and as they should be - full of lust, vigour and chaos. A masterpiece of mayhem from Europe's most gifted director.
Oh yes - three more words - pit bull...terrier! This nutty pop-song provides Dadan with just the right kind of theme tune and was subsequently blasting out of every hi-fi in the Balkans.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
The only time I have been to the cinema and the audience have applauded a film they wish had not ended - not bad for a bunch of reserved Brits! This is truly a fantastic film.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:VHS Tape
What a marvel this film is. (Marvel! ) Like Underground, regrettably the only other Kusturica film I've seen, it growls with energy and sparkles with wit. It's sheer inventiveness could shame a hotel full of rooms full of American screenwriters. It's gloriously messy and sweetly clean, and as you can read very hard to describe. But you don't read about Kusturica, you just have to watch and see and behold. Enjoy. You will.
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Incredibly funny and very entertaining.
Brilliant film which had me tears from laughing. Beautifully directed and well structured, this is one that i will be able to watch several times.
Published 16 months ago by John E
Even those who don't like foreign films like this one
I got two calls one day from a sister then her brother asking me if I knew the name of the movie that had been on late night the night before.
It was this gem. Read more
It was this gem. Read more
Published 18 months ago by Lola Murphy
Absurdity
This was recommneded to me as a great way to see Serbian humour. Maybe I just don't like Servian humour.
Published 20 months ago by SP London
Funny and a Kosturica classic
If you want to spend a couple of hours laughging out loud this is a good option. Emir Kusturica's film about the gipsy life is just hilarious and extremely entertaining.
Published on 22 Dec 2009 by N. Leal
black cat white cat
A little mad at first. But half way in your hooked! Funny, different and just watch it. A true change from the Hollywood films.. Ahhh
Published on 8 Oct 2009 by S. evans
Black Cat, White Cat
Another exceptional film from director Emir Kusturica. A unique screwball comedy that characterizes the eccentricities of Eastern European Gypsies in unusual, exaggerated, and... Read more
Published on 30 Sep 2009 by P. J. Bunting
Great Film!
This film is brilliant! Didn't know what to expect, but it's funny, sad, quirky and a great story! Gypsy gangster films are the films of the future!
Published on 5 July 2009 by K. Tansley
Incredible funny comedy of East Europe
I've noticed, that people out of East Europe, they cannot understand its humour indeed. However the moments of the movie has been adopted from the real life and that makes it so... Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2009 by Pen Name.
Buy this film...
This is a really good alternative film... it's subtitled and the subtitles have a habit of moving around the screen so you have to really pay attention... Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2009 by S. McCarthy
A Film that stands with Finnegan's Wake and Trout Mask Replica
This film drove me up the wall on the first outing - it was complete madness peopled by a vast gallery of grotesques. Read more
Published on 26 Jun 2008 by Glen1975
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
