Film 'Balcancan' Darka Mitrevskog oborio je sve rekorde gledanosti u Makedoniji već u prvom tjednu prikazivanja, a uskoro bi se trebao pojaviti i u hrvatskoj kino distribuciji. Glazbu za film potpisuje Kiril Džajkovski, a ako se može pretpostaviti da je film dobar koliko je dobra i 'glazbena podloga', onda sve dolazi pod predznak 'jedva čekam'.

'Balcancan' soundtrack je prije svega odličan album, koji funkcionira i neovisno o filmu. Džajkovski je majstorski pomiješao melose i instrumente, čime je stvorio slojevitu i modernu glazbenu sliku. U isto vrijeme 'igra' se i s trubačima i električnim gitarama, a pogotovo s ritmom i aranžmanima (najuočljivije u 'Carpet Idea'), dok je u 'Meat Factori' tipični thrash metal aranžman za gitaru, odsviran na čelu (vjerojatno će to uočiti svi oni koji su bar jednom poslušali Apocalypticu).

Iako prevladavaju instrumentali, na posljednjoj pjesmi, 'Baba Zumbula', autor prilično jasno iznosi svoj stav o 'balkanskom loncu' u kojem su se u zadnjih 15 godina našli raznorazni teško probavljivi začini; 'Mačka li im piterina...' – razumljiva igra riječi, sloŽit ćete se. Džajkovski je majstor glazbe kojemu su, sudeći po ovome soundtracku, prilično poznati skoro svižanrovi na svjetskoj sceni, ali posjeduje još bolji osjećaj za vrijeme i prostor u kojem se nalazi. Pored širokog spektra glazbenih utjecaja, 'Balcancan' ipak najviše 'miriše' na Makedoniju, što mu daje neupitni šarm. Sve je dozirano s puno ukusa, ako ne točno, ali onda do te mjere da je stvarno teško pronaći manu. U biti postoji samo jedna mana, a to je što nažalost ta topla silina zvukova traje svega nepunih 38 minuta. Tko zna, možda je Džajkovski i igrao na tu kartu.

T-Portal review

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DEAD MAN'S BLUFF

Bal-can-can, devoted to Billy Wilder, is an infectious and convincing screen product densely packed into an hour and a half. It describes the contemporary situation and customs in the Balkans, peeps into its past with corresponding wildness in the cinematic gaze and in the rhythm of the above-mentioned dance, which for a long time has been out of fashion, but is brought back to life by the director's talent and sense of rhythm, typical for this region. It is also a hysterically funny black comedy, throbbing with vitality, although many characters have lost their lives even before the opening titles.

Bal-can-can opens... in the morgue were the soles of the corpses, showing from under the sheets, are having a lively conversation. The topic is what is Macedonia . "A brand of cigarettes that Monica Bellucci used to smoke in Malena" — suggests one poorly educated but well-versed in cinema corpse (there are a lot of cinema buffs in the movie). The remaining part of the story is also narrated by a dead pair of legs belonging to an Italian named Santino. Shortly before his death he learnt that it is small country in the Balkans, which was once part of a bigger country populated by nice but slightly crazy people and which is in a permanent state of war. The fate of his Balkan relative with the impossible name Trendafil Karanfilov is also inseparably related to wars: in childhood he was terribly frightened by war movies; the day he went to school Pinochet carried out his bloody coup, and when he finished school a war in Nicaragua broke out. Trendafil met his first love the day the conflict between Croatia and Slovenia broke out, the day he went to work the war in Bosnia began and when he got married NATO was bombing Serbia . Given all the excesses of the voiceover it does not seem strained. Curiously as a result of all these coincidences Trendafil became a convinced pacifist. A huge guy, hiding from the army draft in a hen-house but all the same finding himself later almost at the epicenter of military activities (which seem to flare in the Balkans at the strike of a match) is already a fine pretext for a situational comedy. But it is only a starting point for Darko Mitrevski a guy who could soon elbow Emir Kusturica aside from the snug position of the Balkan genius.

Trendafil, his wife and her mother flee to the neighboring Bulgaria , where the mother-in-law swiftly kicks the bucket. Bureaucratic laws of the former socialist country forbid to bury her and Trendafil must drag along the corpse of his mother-in-law...

In The three Burials of Melquiadas Estrada, which was in competition at the Cannes , Tommy Lee Jones made the audience watch the decaying body of the Mexican illegal emigrant for the whole two hours in search of peace. Mitrevski treats the "corpse" theme with a lot more humor and a lot less veneration. Trendafil rolls the dead lady into the carpet, which is immediately stolen from right under his nose. Finding the corpse of the mother-in-law means finding the carpet in the whirlwind of organized crime raging in the countries of former Yugoslavia . At this very moment the first-generation Italian Santino burdened by the oath he once gave to his father to help his poor Macedonian relatives, comes to the rescue of the unlucky Trendafil. The self-confident problem-solver has no idea that no criminal connections whatsoever can save someone, who has gotten into a barrel of gunpowder with a smoldering wick.

Stas Tyrkin
MANEGE