reviews
Dir. Dalibor Mantaniç
Rating: 7.4 | 0 User Reviews | Send to Friend
Dalibor Manataniç's Croatian film noir teaches us one important thing: Small towns are pure evil. Iva (Olga Pakalovic), a medical student, and her girlfriend Marija (Nina Violic) move into a cozy apartment in Zagreb under the guise of being friendly roommates. As they settle in to their quaint new home, their neighbors' odd behaviors come bubbling up to the surface. Chief among them, a man holding his wife's rotting corpse hostage in his apartment and another routinely using his timid wife as a punching bag. A seedy abortionist takes residence in the building, as well as a prostitute (Jadranka Djokic) who Marija's father enlists to help seduce Iva and destroy the couple. And the ring leader, the women's nosy landlord, who encourages her morally bankrupt (and we learn criminal) son Daniel (Kresimir Mikic) to pursue the beautiful Iva to devastating ends. Iva and Marija try to keep their relationship private, but it is not long before they have unearthed the loving couple’s secret and waste no time to make them feel unwelcome. The neighbors' intolerance is baffling and unnerving, demonizing the young couple while ignoring their own hellish flaws, throwing the two into a world of deception, rape, hate and murder in the process. At first, the story strolls along, quiet and restrained as Mantaniç examines the residents' strange comings and goings, but soon enough, it propels to a manic pace, with a rise in body count and viewers' heart rates.
Bonus materials include as discussion guide which consists of director's notes, a history of Croatia, historical background and biographies.
0 User Reviews
Add A Review
