When Father Was Away on Business was Emil Kusturica’s first major cinematic success. Kusturica is not only talented as a director, but something of a character as well.

Historical Background: Besides directing films, Emil Kusturica has played bass guitar for a Serbian rock band called Zabranjeno Pusenje (“No Smoking Orchestra”) from his hometown of Sarajevo since 1986. They even had a gig in Moscow in January of 2001. The band has also recorded a video clip for MTV directed by Kusturica himself. He also once challenged rightwing Serbian ultra-nationalist leader Vojislav Seselj to a duel, suggesting that it be held in Belgrade at high noon using any weapon of Seselj’s choosing. Seselj refused on the grounds that he didn’t want to be accused of killing an artist. Later, in 1995, Kusturica knocked down another leader of the Serbian right, Nebojsa Pajkic, whose wife then defended him by striking Kusturica with her handbag.

As a film director, Emir Kusturica has made a splash by winning not one but two Palme d’Or awards from the Cannes Film Festival. His winning films included the one under review here, When Father Was Away on Business (1985), and Underground (1995). Another excellent film by Kusturica (my personal favorite) is Time of the Gypsies (1988).

The Story: The film opens in the early 1950’s in Yugoslavia, which under Marshall Josip Tito was asserting an independence from the Soviet Union and denouncing Stalinism, while trying also to resist excess Western influence. At the same time, Tito enforced tight, authoritarian control on the people of Yugoslavia, suppressing even the suggestion of political opposition or disagreement with his policies. The principal joy for the populace was rooting for their national soccer team, which was competing for the world cup. Malik (Moreno De Bartolli), a boy of six, and his overweight friend Joza gather herbs for sale at the local shop under the supervision of a rather lazy and alcoholic janitor by the name of Franjo (Predrag Lakovic). Franjo sits under a shade tree and serenades young peasant women working in the nearby field with a Spanish ballad. Nowadays, given the political climate, Franjo sings only songs from far away so that no adverse political innuendo can be drawn from their verses.

In this atmosphere of repression and backstabbing, Malik’s father, Mesha Zolj (Miki Manojlovic), a minor party official and womanizer, makes the mistake of seducing and then rejecting a mistress, Ankica (Mira Furlan), and spouting off in her presence with an off-the-cuff political opinion that opens himself up to her revenge. Mesha comments about a political cartoon in the local newspaper that he thinks that it “goes too far” and that the current government is “a madhouse.” Piqued by Mesha’s unwillingness to divorce his wife to marry her, Ankica informs the local Police Commissioner about Mesha’s injudicious remark. The Commissioner, Zijo (Mustafa Nadarevic), happens to also be the brother of Mesha’s wife, Senija (Mirjana Karanovic), which ought to have worked in his favor, but Zijo, a loyal party functionary, is more than happy to arrest his brother-in-law, especially after Zijo begins an affair of his own with Ankica.

Mesha thus gets sent off, first, to work in a mine and, later, for a period of “political resocialization” working at a hydroelectric plant. Senija is especially humiliated that it is her husband’s philandering that has left him vulnerable to this political retribution. To spare Malik and his older brother, Mirza (Davor Dujmovic), from the embarrassing truth, she adopts the euphemism (which had become all too frequently necessary in Yugoslavia at that time) that “father has had to go away on business.” All of the adult neighbors and relatives, however, know the truth of the situation. In fact, the husband of one of the neighborhood women, Ilonka Petrovic (Eva Ras), nicknamed “Zivka”, has disappeared altogether and is believed to have been murdered by the regime as a political prisoner. For their part, Malik and Mirza do their best to raise their mother’s spirits and ease her crying fits.

The rest of this extended family includes Senija’s elderly father, Muzamer (Pavle Vujisic), and another brother of Senija, who is a soldier, and who shows up long enough to court and marry Zivka’s daughter, Natasha (Jelena Covic). The entire family gathers together for the circumcisions of the two brothers, Malik and Mirza, which is a good deal less pleasant event for the boys than the guests. It hasn’t helped that Malik has been told by his seemingly more knowing brother that a circumcision consists of them grabbing your prick and cutting off half of it!

During Mesha’s hard labor in the mine, his family is unable to even get word to him or receive information from him or about him. Senija is able to visit Mesha once and learns of the involvement of Ankica and her own brother, Zijo, in Mesha’s arrest. After returning home, she confronts Ankica and rips into her in a vicious cat-fight. She has to content herself, in Zijo case, with giving him the cold shoulder.

Later, when Mesha moves onto the “reeducation” phase of his sentence, Senija and the two boys are able to join him in the distant town of Zvornik, after an arduous journey. At Zvornik, Malik makes the acquaintance of a little girl of perhaps twelve, Masa, the daughter of Doctor Ljahaov (Aleksandar Dorcev). She is a little charmer and Malik falls as much in love with her as a six-year-old boy can be said to be in love. He even decides that he likes schoolwork because he gets to do it sitting beside her at a table. They also bathe together and Masa is already equipped with little breasts. Unfortunately, Masa has some unspecified terminal disease that soon tears the two very young lovers apart.

The strain of his father’s situation as well as Masa’s illness has caused Malik to become a sleepwalker. Kusturica used this concept as somewhat blatant symbolism for the Yugoslavian people’s response to the severe political suppression in the country. Malik manages to sleepwalk to some pretty precarious places. While in Zvornik, Malik accompanies his father on a “buying trip” with his boss, which is actually nothing more than cover for a whoring excursion to a prostitute-laden town. Malik, whose loyalty rests first and foremost with his mother, responds to his father’s philandering, first, by setting fire to the dress of one of the bimbos and later with a bout of somnambulism, ending up on the top of a vertical precipice.

Word finally arrives that Mesha is considered rehabilitated and free to return to Sarajevo. No sooner have they returned than the family gathers for the wedding of Senija’s younger brother and Natasha. There, Mesha extracts a modicum of revenge on Ankica which, frankly, was not much to my liking, for multiple reasons. I’ll leave this final twist of an ending for readers to discover for themselves, however.

Themes: It is a bit shocking to view this film from the vantage point of the 21st century. Yugoslavia no longer exists as a country and the peaceful coexistence of Muslims, Christians, and Jews as well as Serbs and Croats now looks almost like an idyllic past except for the stifling political repression. It’s painful to consider that the city depicted in much of this film, Sarajevo, experienced the loss of 300,000 lives, if one includes the surrounding area. No doubt, some of the participants in this film, as actors, extras, or crew, were casualties and are no longer with us. The main theme of this film is the stiffling effect that heavy-handed political repression has on the spirit of a people. Sleepwalking serves as the metaphor for the effect.

Production Values: This is a pleasant and endearing film but a little too meandering for my taste. I liked the harsh political commentary about the circumstances that existed in Yugoslavia in the 1950’s as well as the vignettes of family life and boyhood in that country, but the Slavic sense of humor is apparently lost on me. The comedic elements just don’t strike me as even amusing, much less uproarious. I had the same problem with Kusturica’s Underground, which similarly mixes political commentary with comedy. The commentary works but the humor doesn’t, at least for me. Both films kind of meander along without an especially strong momentum.

Kusturica produced this film entirely within Yugoslavia without a penny of foreign money, which is really quite remarkable. The cinematography by Vilko Filac was average overall, with only a few attention-grabbing shots. The soundtrack, however, if very appealing, with several lovely folk songs cropping up. Given Kusturica's musical talents, it should come as no surprise that music would play a significant role in his films.

Most of the film is told from the vantage point of Malik and the young actor, Moreno De Bartolli, who played the part gives a very good performance for a child actor, though not among the best I’ve seen. Miki Manojlovic, who played the father, is a very talented actor and a Kusturica regular. He’s also appeared in Underground (1995) and Set Me Free (1999). Davor Dujmovic, who has the relatively limited role of Malik’s brother Mirza in this film, later starred in Time of the Gypsies (1989). Mirjana Karanovic, who played the mother, also later worked in Underground (1995).

Bottom-Line: This is a good film but I did not find it among the most engaging that I’ve seen recently. If you enjoy the slice-of-life (no pun intended in relation to the circumcision segment) kind of approach to filmmaking, you may like this film more than the three-star rating I’m giving it. Certainly the knowledgeable people at the Cannes Film Festival thought more highly of this film than I do. This film is rated R in the United States. The scenes involving sex are non-explicit but there is a bit of child nudity and a more explicit depiction of the preparations for circumcision than I’ve ever seen previously on film and ever want to see again. It is in Yugoslavian with English subtitles and has a running time of 144 minutes.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Yugoslavia:

Time of the Gypsies
Underground

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age