Weight of Chains
Do you remember Yugoslavia, that war torn former communist state somewhere in Eastern Europe? Yeah, what was that all about again?
So I had a lot of preconceptions going into this film, several of them have shifted dramatically as a result. I used to attribute the civil war and political turmoil to the death of Tito and rise of corrupt/inept political figures. This documentary makes a heavily researched effort to construct a picture detailing many of the external forces acting on Jugoslavija at the time, and when collectively portrayed, makes quite a convincing argument that Western democracies had played just as big a role in creating this dark period of Slavic national history as the denizens themselves.
It's my first exposure to Boris Malagurski, currently a Canadian. There's a plethora of dialogue to follow (something I personally enjoy), but as far as the optical sensory goes, he switches between old clip footage and recent interviews, never appearing in the documentary himself (that I'm aware). I do recall that he was consistently sarcastic in his presentation of events throughout, as he narrated the entire thing. There are quite a few bits from Serbian filmography, their style of humor included.
Maybe you don't care about Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia or any of the territories of the former Yugoslavia, but what could capture your interest is the manner in which the U.S., Germany, U.K., NATO, IMF, etc. practice their predatory capitalist agendas. However, if the story of Yugoslavia is of any interest to you, it does cover the historical background from the Ottoman occupation to the cessation of Montenegro.
This movie seems to not be able to find its way to common consumer outlets, so it's basically something you would need to either pirate from Demonoid or purchase directly from their website. Definitely worth a watch though, assuming the audience that I'm preaching to doesn't include ignorant nitwits.
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