It's 1941 Belgrade. Blacky and Marko Dren are best friends partying around town. Marko enrolls Blacky into the Communist Party. The Nazis bomb and occupy the city. The guys start stealing from the Nazis and hunted as wanted men. Three years later in a rage of jealousy, Blacky goes on stage strapped to his mistress Natalija and kills her Nazi officer lover. Blacky is later shot while escaping. After the war, Marko becomes a high functionary with Tito as he elevates Blacky's heroism through film while Blacky is actually still alive. Marko keeps Blacky and others underground manufacturing weapons under the false pretense that they are still occupied by the Nazis.

There is something about this movie that seems lost in translation. It feels like there is something being said about the ethnic mix of the characters but I don't think it's clear. It doesn't explain the war in the Balkans which would be the most important aspect to explain for a movie of that time. The movie's surrealism also takes away from any realism to the all-too-real situation.

It's always difficult viewing a foreign film without knowing the country's history and politics, so for a Western audience that includes myself, I don't know if the film carries much resonance. What I did surmise with "Underground" was that it was a surreal blend of historical drama, war time chaos, caustic humor and ribald farce. The central idea seems to be director Emir Kusturica's blunt representation of political chicanery that fools an entire society, along with the corruption that allows certain individuals to thrive at the expense of others. One must suspend enormous amounts of disbelief to accept that a nation secludes itself 'underground' for decades believing a war is still raging on. I found the film to be filled with absurdist dark humor, though for my taste, it often seemed directionless and meandering. My viewing was of the one hundred seventy minute theatrical version, and shudder to imagine what the director's cut of five plus hours would have required in the name of patience and fortitude.

The story follows an underground weapons manufacturer in Belgrade during WWII and evolves into fairly surreal situations. A black marketeer who smuggles the weapons to partisans doesn't mention to the workers that the war is over, and they keep producing. Years later, they break out of their underground "shelter" --- only to convince themselves that the war is still going on.

I know very little about Yugoslavian film, or Serbian film or any other film industry of the region. But this is some great satire here, with the sensibility of Luis Bunuel or those fine folks who made "Delicatessen" and "Amelie" (drawing a blank on their names, sorry). Who knew that war could be funny? This is the sort of war comedy that "Life is Beautiful" could only dream of being.