Zivi bili pa vidjeli (1979) Poster

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4/10
Film about young people struggling with real life at the end of Tito's era in Yugoslavia
vanjamarin31 August 2004
-Janko is just finishing his University of architecture, when falling in love with Martina, the daughter of big Architect-studio CEO. Story is happening in Zagreb, Croatia (then still Yugoslavia).

-He (Janko), being from a poor family, having to take care of himself fully, supporting both his school and life, comes in good favor of Martina's father who employs him in his company (It is a public, state company, where Martina father is CEO! Back then there were very few private companies in socialistic Yugoslavia...)

However, being a young, idealistic, rebel young man, Janko can't close his eyes over big corruption that is going on in business... For exposing the irregularities, he's being expelled from everything, and his struggle becomes even harder! At the same time, Martina gets pregnant, and he, suddenly, has to think not only about himself, but also how to take care of 'family of three'....

-Film was shot in "New Wave" era in former Yugoslavia... It was very important time (late 70's and early 80's) when the hardest wall of Tito's socialism was just breaking down, and young generations were finally breaking out... Kind of generation-revolution (something that probably happened in late 60s in the west)...

-Two guys who wrote and directed the film,Bruno Gamulin and Milivoj Puhlovski, former students and today both professors at 'Academy of Dramatic Arts' in Zagreb, did their homage to those times... They were well connected to the rest of the art scene of the time! (The music was scored by one of the most popular New Wave bands in former Yugoslavia, 'Buldozer')...

Watching the movie today, from quite a time distance, it may seem little naive and childish, but it is very important to know and understand the time and place it came from...

Its modest budget probably affected some of movie making (direction is sometimes quite simple, long shots, dialogs that are not cut, but just panned, lot of 'mute shooting' and adding the entire sound later on, which is then quite noticeable - I can't tell how much of those details were done on purpose, and how many of them are caused by budget tightness (and I must say that budget tightness then was really the matter of even having enough film reel - so probably no more then 1 or 2 repetitions were possible, as well as cutting shots and taking them from many various angles etc.)... I doubt that they could afford much of the set decoration, nor any rich scene lighting!

But, it's got a rhythm, quite a good acting (much better then Croatian films offer nowadays, I am afraid) and it had a story (another thing Croatian film lacks in last decade)... The story was maybe a bit naive, but, I must repeat, just from today's point of view!

Back than it was the time when young people really have had that great feeling of having some influence and being able to make some changes!!!
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