PRACTICAL GUIDE TO BELGRADE WITH SINGING AND CRYING

Romantic comedy or episodic movie? As we watch four couples in present-day Belgrade grapple with the trials and tribulations of love, the film proves to be both (and much more besides). Silvie, a chanson singer on the verge of a nervous breakdown, is escorted round the city by the young chauffeur Stefan for one day and one night. On the very day the dominatrix Melita is set to leave Belgrade with the American diplomat Brian, she discovers her slave is not the man he said he was. Orhan, a German-Turkish businessman, learns about the roots of Turkish culture in the course of an encounter with the beautiful Jagoda and vast quantities of alcohol. The Serbian policewoman Đurđa and her Croatian husband Mato choose their wedding day to reveal the lies they have told each other. Like in a thematic travel guide the different chapters are linked, in this case by choirs who sing enchantingly sad love songs and also promote Serbia as a tourist destination. Supported by a splendid cast, director Bojan Vuletić at the same casually depicts life in contemporary Serbia, a candidate for EU accession, as promising to enrich the diversity united within the boundaries of that institution.