Who's Singin' Over There?
On June 30, 1980, Slobodan Sijan's film "Ko to tamo peva (Who's Singin' Over There?)" was released on the screens of Yugoslav cinemas. For the 34-year-old director, this was the first full-length feature film. The script of the film, written by Dusan Kovacevic, is based on a real event.
The genre of the film is defined as black comedy, or tragicomedy, or tragifarce. Some information for determining the genre may be given by the fact that the film takes place on April 5, 1941. For Yugoslavia, this date has the same meaning as for Russia on June 21, 1941.
According to the founder and editor-in-chief of the online edition of East European Film Bulletin, German film critic Konstanty Kuzma, the film is difficult for foreign critics and viewers to perceive because of everyday comic stories with national color and is completely inaccessible to analysis by a Western cinema school. However, this did not prevent Slobodan Sijan's debut film at the Montréal World Film Festival from winning the Special Prize of the Jury - the second most important award of this festival.
But the success of the film at the Montréal World Film Festival is probably still quite an extraordinary event. The almost complete absence of reviews for this film from professional film critics confirms the assumption of Konstanty Kuzma about the inability of most Western film critics to understand the specific Balkan humor. But, to be fair, it should be noted that I also could not find reviews for this film from Russian leading film critics. So perhaps the lack of reviews for this film from professional film critics is not due to a lack of intelligence, but, let's say, a lack of incentives. After all, the production of this film was spent only 130 thousand dollars (equivalent to the current 500 thousand dollars) and 21 shooting days. It is unlikely that the creators of the film had the means to pay for film critics as well. And professional film critics will not work for free. They are professionals.
So, we have to appeal to Amateurs. For example, canadian blogger Greg Woods, author of "The Eclectic Screening Room" channel, wrote about Slobodan Sijan's film:
"Who's Singing Over There? is a very funny, quite surreal black comedy, yet also a harsh portrait of human cruelty. Although this is set in the early 20th century, this film nonetheless has a medieval quality about it-- if you take away the bus and the sound of planes, there is really very little that is modern. People still live off the land, and the road is merely two little brown lines. The look of this film also has an engagingly primitive aspect. Many times it gives the illusion of being shot merely with available light, further adding to its gritty feel. With such an ambitious storyline, scenes of hilarity and pathos, and, during a time of (more) war, it is a moving portrait of ordinary citizens always living under the threat of combat. Nearly thirty years later, we still can't find Who's Singing Over There? under the "Foreign" section at the video store. This is a real shame. This may be one of the greatest films you will never see."
Perhaps it was the lack of numerous reviews by film critics on this film that allowed most moviegoers to form their own independent opinion. 88% of IMDB and Kinopoisk users worldwide rated this Slobodan Sijan's film from 8 to 10. And almost 54% of users rated the film as high as ten. Based on the foregoing, the rating of the film "Ko to tamo peva (Who's Singin' Over There?)" according to FilmGourmand is 9.106, which makes the film rank 139th in the Golden Thousand.
The Golden Thousand includes 6 films created by Yugoslav filmmakers. The indicators of Slobodan Sijan's film "Who's Singin' Over There?" are the highest of the six. On this basis, we can conclude that this picture is the best film in Yugoslav cinema.
