"Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator" opens with Dr. Aleksandr DJ Kostic extolling the virtues of a healthy sex life. That's a path that best friends Izabela(Eva Ras) and Ruza(Ruzica Sokic) pursue enthusiastically while escaping from their dreary jobs. During their socializing, Izabela hooks
up with Ahmed(Slobodan Aligrudic).
If for no other reason than to act as buzzkill, along comes Dr. Zivojin L. Aleksic, a criminologist, to narrate an episode of "CSI: Belgrade," as the police retrieve Izabela's body, three months pregnant, from the sewers. Therefore, it would seem that life is short, so don't take anything for granted.
But that's what the Communist government of Yugoslavia did, even if their time does not come for another couple of decades. But at this point, patriotic songs play everywhere, somewhat ironically.(This might be the first time anybody has ever gotten sexually excited watching a propaganda film but it is anti-clerical, which does make a weird sort of sense.) That's not the only part of the film that is dated, as some of the movie's once daring elements such as interracial relationships(Izabela is Hungarian while Ahmed is Turkish), premarital sex and nudity(although some people still do have a problem with this) are now wonderfully quaint.
February 9, 2011
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