If I had to summarize my experience with Emir Kusturica's Underground, it would be this: I haven't felt as emotionally exhausted and physically drained after watching a movie since Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). How good is Underground? It may very well be the best film of the 90s. It combines the mesmerizing, terrifying intensity of Werner Herzog with the frenetic energy and spontaneity of Federico Fellini. It is a creation that can only exist in the realm of cinema, borne from more than just a plot, but by the interplay and exchange of frenzied images and music. Examining a nearly 50-year swath of Yugoslav history from the start of World War II until the terrible Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, Underground follows the evolution of an entire people through the characters of two friends, Petar "Blacky" Popara and Marko Dren. As violence engulfs their home throughout the decades, they become thieves, revolutionaries, freedom fighters, national heroes, film stars, and war profiteers. Hardly a moment goes by without some element of genius unfolding before our eyes on the screen: the Nazi invasion of Belgrade as seen through the eyes of a terrified zookeeper, a bride-kidnapping involving a theatrical performance and the on-stage assassination of her Nazi lover, the incarceration of dozens of hapless workers in an underground warehouse forced to make weapons for decades after the end of World War II under the pretense that the war was still going on, the grandiose historical "reconstruction" of one of Blacky and Marko's "greatest battles" for a state-sponsored film, and many, many more moments of sheer wizardry. Underground is a challenge and an inspiration for future generations of filmmakers.
10/10
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