LOVE AND OTHER CRIMES

It’s a grey, cold morning in Novi Beograd. A number of things will be broken by evening: a newspaper kiosk, a car, a vase, several hearts.
Milutin, a fatherly gangster boss, sinks into a state of deep melancholy as he contemplates his problems, including the vast supermarket about to open in the area he controls. It will endanger his main source of revenue: the protection money he extorts from local traders. His daughter Ivana isn’t full of the joys of life, either – her neighbour Stanislav regularly has to gently coax her back from the edge of the roof. He’s less subtle when performing his duties as Milutin’s henchman, doling out drastic punishment to those who get caught between the lines of the two rival protection rackets. He nurtures a secret, childishly adoring, passion for Anica, who used to tutor him after school and is now Milutin’s mistress. She’s lonely and unhappy, doesn’t have a clue about Stanislav’s feelings, but has a secret of her own: she’s made up her mind to get out of Belgrade and start a new life. As we see her making concealed farewell visits to friends and relatives, an air of finality seems to hang over the disintegrating microcosm of the housing estate. That is the glacial backdrop against which Anica and Stanislav tentatively get closer to each other– knowing only too well that for them love has come too late.
Director Stefan Arsenijević won a Golden Bear at Berlin in 2003 with his short film (A)TORSION. His first full-length fiction depicts the tragedy of a small group of people: a harsh tale told with sympathy and visual restraint.