A few days ago, teacher Ljiljana wrote very interesting article about Serbian films: 10 Must-Watch Serbian Films (http://www.italki.com/discussion/101591)

After a couple of days thinking about this topic, I have decided to present 20 Serbian films which I think all are gemstones of Serbian and former YugosIav cinematography. I believe they show living in Serbia in previous 80 years or so in a real light; at the time before the World War the Second, during the war, after the war but before the decomposition of former Yugoslavia, and period after that time until now.

I am going to write about the films one by one. Otherwise, it'll be a very long text, tiring to read, and difficult to me to write it all at once.

Please free to correct my English. By doing that I'll improve my writing and your pleasure of reading.

1 „Maratonci trče počasni krug“ (“The Marathon Family”)

This is the first drama that famous Serbian dramatist Dusan Kovacevic (Dušan Kovačević) wrote for the stage in early seventies. (OK, maybe not his first drama, but the first drama which was performed).

It was a satire about that period of life in former Yugoslavia, but when he wrote the screenplay for the film with the same title in 1982, the time when events took a part was changed to year 1935, thus it describes the time before the World War the second.

The film has become one of Serbian cult films and some of replicas from it in Serbia are used a lot in everyday speech:

„Šta to radiš kume?“ - What are you doing godfather? (When you are very unpleasantly surprised)

„Šta će biti s kućom?“ - What will happen to the house? (When you don’t believe what you heard what someone is going to do)

„Al’ ga je popravio, svaka mu čast!“ - He fix it brilliantly, congratulations to him. (When you admire someone for the great work done.)

„Ponovo radi bioskop!“ The cinema is open again. (When something is now as it was a lot of time before)

The Marathon Family is a black humour story about five generations of family Topalovic which are morticians in a small town in Serbia between two great wars. Somehow they all are men, without any woman except their maid.

The only other woman in the film is Kristina, a daughter of an another mortician family. The youngest member of Topalovic family, Mirko, is in love with Kristina, but she is mesmerized with Đenka, a photographer who makes porno films.

Should I say that Mirko and Đenka are the best friends and Mirko admires Đenka? However, the story is about the inheritance of Pantelija, the oldest member of the family who dies after 150 years of life.

A few years ago Dusan Kovacevic said about the drama:

“While I was writing a story about a young man who lived in the family of Methuselah undertakers wishing to escape from that darkness (death) and go somewhere to a better, more beautiful and more vital world, everything was a metaphor about the rule of “the undertaker” in a communist country - the company for production of funeral equipment with its own sense of unbearable claustrophobia, I did not know then in early seventies, that my personal “drama” would be transferred (after theater) into a film, and then, in a musical in 2008 because the time of those seventies seems as far from now as is thinking today about the flight to Venus.”

It isn’t all what is interesting about the drama. A year and a half ago, in Belgrade „Zvezdara Theater” where now Dusan Kovacevic is a director, “The Marathon Family” was performed with all female actresses!