The band of rowdy construction workers at the heart of Serbian director Milos Pusic’s dark new dramedy are not your typical Working Class Heroes, and the film’s title is meant to be taken somewhat ironically, or at least with a sizeable grain of salt. They are, however, the victims of a corrupt system that starts somewhere at the top, then works its way down to the laborers toiling unpaid on an illegal site that’s the source of much speculation, resulting in a series of misdeeds that gradually spin out of control.
Pusic captures the moral quandaries facing both the workers and the overtaxed real estate executive, Lidija (played by Quo Vadis, Aida? star Jasna Djuricic), who tries to keep them in line, and the result has the gritty verisimilitude and droll blue-collar vibe of a Ken Loach movie, though without the Britsh auteur’s lightness of touch. Premiering in Berlin’s Panorama section, the director’s third feature captivates with its built-in, realistic tension, even if it ties up loose ends a bit too neatly (spilt blood notwithstanding), and should garner some attention at festivals and in spots across Europe.
An opening sequence, where Lidija calls in a bunch of thugs to evict a family from an apartment she’s already listed at a profitable price, shows how unscrupulous both she and her sinister boss, Miki (Aleksandar Djurica), can be when it comes to closing a deal.
After, the story shifts to, and generally sticks with, the half-dozen construction hands they have hired — “hired” being a big word because there are clearly no contracts, pay slips or anything resembling workers’ comp — to clean up an abandoned housing project they’re hoping to flip into a brand new apartment complex. The place is filled with garbage, foliage and unstable foundations that the brokers try to gloss over by bringing in a TV news team, then hiring an Orthodox bishop to sanctify the site.
The workers, meanwhile, are led by Braco (Predrag Momcilovic), a man past his prime who’s willing to cut whatever corners he can to get the job done, including never paying his own people. Serving on his crew are the wise aleck Professor (Boris Isakovic) and a newbie named the Kid (Stefan Beronja), who’s beginning to learn the ropes of a tricky, and increasingly more dangerous, trade.
If it seems like the real estate folks are bad guys — and wait till you meet the perverse investor (Filip Djuric) that Miki and Lidija try to court in a club one night — the workers eventually prove that they’re not entirely guilt-free, either, especially after we see how the Professor fakes a gruesome accident in order to blackmail his employers.
Scripted by Pusic along with co-writers Dusan Spasojevic and Ivan Knezevic, the story contstantly underlines how corruption in Serbia exists on all levels, with everyone seems to be scheming on the next guy, and where the only way to make it in such a dog-eat-dog world is to screw someone over — screwing being a euphemism at times for murder.
If the film starts off as a loose contemporary workplace study, with Aleksandar Ramadanovic’s handled camera tracking the characters through the daily grind, it eventually blossoms into a suspenseful morality tale where Lidija is forced to decide between what’s right, and what kind of huge payoff she’ll get if she manages to push the deal through. The fact that she’s having an affair with her Miki, who treats her like a piece of unwanted office furniture, seems to be clouding her judgment as well.
Djuricic, who was a standout in the excellent Quo Vadis, Aida?, is strong here as a woman trying to find her place in a very ugly, very male-dominated environment, and Lidija’s moments of respite are fleeting indeed. The way she finally manages to unchain herself and bite the depraved hand that’s been feeding her feels a little scripted and cartoonish, like something out of a Coen brothers film, though to the credit of Pusic, it doesn’t shy away from the realities of a system where you either get rich or die trying.
Director, producer: Milos Pusic
Screenplay: Dusan Spasojevic, Ivan Knezevic, Milos Pusic
Cast: Jasna Djuricic, Boris Isakovic, Predrag Momcilovic, Stefan Beronja, Aleksandar Djurica, Bojana Milanovic
Cinematography: Aleksandar Ramadanovic
Production design: Miljena Vuckovic
Costume design: Marina Sremac
Editing: Ivan Knezevic, Milos Pusic
Music: Jovan Obradovic
Sound: Boris Zaborski, Steven Milosevic, Nikola Malogajski, Lazar Zivanac
Production companies: Altertise (Serbia)
World sales: Heretic
Venue: Berlin International Film Festival (Panorama)
In Serbian
85 minutes
