Bookended by a cabaret-style master of ceremonies, the film (set in February 1998, when the troubles started in Kosovo) is a stark illustration of the hell-hole that Yugoslavia has become as it follows assorted characters (some of whose paths eventually cross) during a freezing winter's night in Belgrade. A young man who accidentally bumps into another's car is assaulted at home by thugs who are happy to smash the only photograph of his dead mother; a policeman, whose body has been badly broken, faces the man who smashed him up; a desperate bruiser murders his best friend with a bottle before killing himself and a troubled girl with a grenade; a bus journey turns into a nightmare ride and, as with most other scenes, is shot through with pointless, uncontrolled violence; one harrowing scene, which includes the drowning of an estranged ex-fiancé, points to the impossibility of love... |