Underground

The 1995 film, "Underground" follows the lives of two men through the history of Yugoslavia starting with WWII progressing to the Cold War, and then lastly through the Yugoslav wars. The overall consciousness of the movie directs itself towards the manic state of people of power during periods of strife and hardship.The sections that we watched seemed to portray a wronged nation seeking justice, and it also comments on the state of people's minds when at war. For example, a noisy marching band follows Blacky around wherever he goes whenever he is in a situation where he commands power. Aesthetically the movie creates tension through the use of loud music and crazily hectic scenes, such as the scene where Marko and Blacky are celebrating Jovan's 3rd birthday and a brawl begins because two people are suspected to be traitors. Mood is subtly expressed through satirical-like mockery of Nazis and also Partisans, who act in strange behaviors. The scene where Blacky sits around eating during the bombing of his city, is a good example of this strange behavior. His disgruntled wife asks him during the bombing, "How can you just sit there and eat?" and he replies, "What, do you want me to die hungry?" This kicks off the movie with a feeling of unease, due to characters responding in abnormal ways to extremely serious events. The mixture of the documentary scenes overlaid with the characters demonstrates that, in the movie, Yugoslavia was going through actual realtime war events, yet the way the characters respond is far from any type of reality. This can be seen as commentary about people during war, and how Yugoslavia may have been during the hard times in its history.