Re: Emir Kusturica Life Is A Miracle Torrent
Kiera Mcintyde
As the title suggests, beyond the exploration of war and history, the movie is in essence about the miracle of existence. Its exaggerated histrionics are but devices to communicate the joys and pains of living. The railway engineer, Luka (Slavko Stimac), struggles between love and family, wanders among false choices and possibilities of justice, standing in the middle of his lover, a free-spirited Muslim nurse, and his football-loving son. Life is a Miracle is ultimately a chaotic moral story.
Consider parts of the story: Axel Blackmar (Johnny Depp) likes talking to fish, he struggles with live a normal life, he drifts around in search of meaning; he falls in love with Elaine Stalker (Faye Dunaway), who always wants to fly, thus, to please her, he builds flying machines. Characters then go mad, recover, go mad again. There are thunderstorms, legs tangling under tables, Russian roulette. Some of the characters finally discover some meanings in life, some die before they do.
It is a near-masterwork. The film resembles more to a dream than to any other movie. There are sequences in which a giant fish swim across the city air among the lonely, good-looking characters. If a movie-goer wants to experience true strangeness, Arizona Dream is more than worth-while.
Above all, this is a coming-of-age movie, a caricature of individuals growing up surrounded by historical events. This film is also about family, forgiveness, and the power of hope under scenes of oppression. In the final scene, the audience views the sleepwalking child ascending onto the air, giving hopeful hints of future brightness.
The film depicts not only the tragedy of a people, it is about the death of a nation. War is a tragedy, the disintegration of a country is something more complex. As a result, Kusturica thinks that the carnivalesque is the only way to deal with this complex Yugoslavian problem.
Time of the Gypsies is not a movie, it is not just an experience, it contains a world and along with it many unforgettable human beings. Roger Ebert thinks that The Godfather is a great film because it allows the audience to glimpse into an alien world, to be with a group of people one is not used to, to live for some brief moments an alive and alluring existence that no one can refuse to explore.
With this motion picture, the audience is plunged into the world and time of the gypsies: feeling their emotions, living their lives, caring and finding their own place in the universe. The strangeness of the gypsies may persist even after viewing the film, but we will never again see the gypsies as the others, but rather as breathing human beings.