Watching this film, a foreigner clueless about Yugoslavia couldn't be blamed for thinking that it was one of the underdeveloped countries. The locations are bleak, working-class destitute, there are all kinds of sheds, gray dominates, there is mud and dirt, dilapidated shantytowns, etc. A real "kitchen-sink" drama. Fans of Ken Loach or Mike Leigh might comment that this is an excellently portrayed realism of the working class. However, they'd be mostly wrong, because not only is this movie far from excellent, it is unlike most of those 70s/80s/90s British films in the sense that it does not have any socio-political ambitions. It barely has a plot. (Mind you, I don't like lumping Leigh and Loach in the same quality bracket the way I just did genre-wise: Leigh is a classy film-maker, whereas Loach is vastly overrated.)
The plot is quite drawn out, especially in the first half, but everything still revolves around Dvornik. Or almost everything.
Around the middle of the film, Bata Zivojinovic suddenly appears for the first time and immediately becomes the main character, to the point that Dvornik is suddenly relegated to near-irrelevance and the prostitute from the film's title is totally ignored. It's as if some other movie had invaded this one, for a while at least. When Bata is killed by a woman, the focus returns to Dvornik once again. This is the typical kind of strange/undisciplined structure one finds in many YU films, especially from this period. The scripts are in a state of chaos, anarchy almost, as though a bunch of incompatible writers who disliked each other contributed various bits and pieces.
If the entire section with Bata had been cut out, the plot revolving around Dvornik - the main plot - would not have changed at all.
The film would have been better if there were none of those boring bar-song moments, and if the film had stuck to the basic plot with more discipline. In essence, we are not even told why the woman left Dvornik or why she returned to him. Their relationship, which should be central to the film, is not explained properly.
Nor do I don't think it's logical at all for a prostitute to start having sex with a guy when she knows that Dvornik is right there somewhere, nearby. She doesn't even try to hide herself and her lover from him.
The plot is quite drawn out, especially in the first half, but everything still revolves around Dvornik. Or almost everything.
Around the middle of the film, Bata Zivojinovic suddenly appears for the first time and immediately becomes the main character, to the point that Dvornik is suddenly relegated to near-irrelevance and the prostitute from the film's title is totally ignored. It's as if some other movie had invaded this one, for a while at least. When Bata is killed by a woman, the focus returns to Dvornik once again. This is the typical kind of strange/undisciplined structure one finds in many YU films, especially from this period. The scripts are in a state of chaos, anarchy almost, as though a bunch of incompatible writers who disliked each other contributed various bits and pieces.
If the entire section with Bata had been cut out, the plot revolving around Dvornik - the main plot - would not have changed at all.
The film would have been better if there were none of those boring bar-song moments, and if the film had stuck to the basic plot with more discipline. In essence, we are not even told why the woman left Dvornik or why she returned to him. Their relationship, which should be central to the film, is not explained properly.
Nor do I don't think it's logical at all for a prostitute to start having sex with a guy when she knows that Dvornik is right there somewhere, nearby. She doesn't even try to hide herself and her lover from him.
