Life Is A Miracle [DVD]

I remember watching Emir Kusturica's Black Cat White Cat and being completely blown away. It opened a magnificently exuberant world of colour, music and culture I had not experienced before. Having watched his earlier films I was interested to see how they were all very different from each other based on evrything from satire to drama and even magic realism Kusturica is a very versatile director.Life is a Miracle is a fantastic film full of sympathetic characters, drama, romance and above all music. Set during the Bosnian war it tells the story of Luka, a railway worker, whose family life is shaped by his unstable wife and his football obsessed son Milos. However when the war comes Milos is forced to join the army and is eventually taken prisoner. Luka then comes into contact with a Bosnian Muslim girl who has been taken captive. He initially decides to try and exchange her for his son but the two fall in love. Although not the most original of narratives it is the way in which Kusturica tells the story that it makes such a good film. Humourous, poignant, and always musical (the directors gypsy band Emir Kusturica & the no smoking orchestra created a fantastic soundtrack)the otherwise harrowing narrative of the civil war is counterbalanced by a deeply human sense of wonder and charm.The only reason that I gave this film four instead of five stars is that it does feel that Kusturica is perhaps relying too strongly on the successful formula behind Underground and Black Cat White Cat. It is in itself a great watch, if quite long, but in terms of his other films it doesn't really add much to the canon.

Football is a blood sport in Yugoslavia, why no one knows but when there is a match there is always a punch up. How does it start? In this film the football match is played at night in fog and a couple of fans decide to urinate on the goalkeeper. The postman is in the process of delivering a letter in a lonely hamlet deep in the mountains when he surprises a family of bears in his neighbours house. What ties this altogether is a narrowgauge railway and the local stationmaster telegraphist in Bosnia when the civil war reaches it. In this pastoral highland people live in close proximity with their domestic animals including a donkey who is important to the resolution of this story. Kustrica foregoes his trademark geese for ducks and chickens. Dogs act as straight men for the jokes. Some of the jokes take things to unheard of heights like using a satellite phone to contact a sex line in Munich from the middle of abattle in Bosnia paying by Barclaycard. The son of the stationmaster is drafted into the army and he gets captured by Bosnian muslims and interned. Thinking about the problem his neighbours kidnap a young bosnian woman for the stationmaster to use as a hostage in exchange. The stationmaster's wife has done a bunk with hungarian musician and the story takes flight. What you should know is that the subtitles are in French or dutch only.

an apparent comedic satire of the Bosnian Serb conflict. one of the most bloody and bitter civil wars of recent memory, a conflict that gave us the term ethnic cleansing, a conflict where extreme SERB NATIONALISTS, nay, lets call them FACISTS, took the SERBIAN people into the same Abyss that Hitler took the German nation, namely GENOCIDE. For example, let us remind ourselves that in Srebrenica in July 1995, after the Dutch peace keeping force was evacuated, in a period of five days, at a conservative estimate, 7000 unarmed captive Bosnian Muslim men and boys were executed and dumped in mass graves. This was a conflict where the Bosnian Serb paramilitaries routinely practised rape on Bosnian Muslim women as a policy of intimidation. This film left me sick in my stomach, and with a bad taste. And to add insult to injury, the director gave us an eyeful of female nudity in a completely gratuitous sex scene in an implausible love affair between a captive Bosnian Muslim girl and her Bosnian Serb captor. I normally cannot be bothered with writing reviews, we see so many films via Lovefilm, but this film was a horrible experience and therefore I was driven to do so. I'm no expert but I think the writer director was somewhat confused, or just made it up as he went along, or was drunk, or all three.

Bought this film on our return from Serbia where we went on the famous train and stayed at Kustonica.Film was weird in parts, but enjoyable - if you liked Amelie you will probably like this.Very long and with the sub-titles, perhaps best viewed in instalments for a few nights afterwards I felt like watching the next 'instalment'!Probably worth watching again to pick up on the nuances

I am not going to write about the plot or what happens in this film since you can read about on Wikipedia or the previous reviews. I just want to say that this is the second Emir Kusturica film I watch, after underground. It's definitely not going to be the last. I love the vitality of his films and the way he weaves the events of the story, so delightful and emotionally satisfying. All the scenes are equally interesting and absorbing.I think those who have not seen any film by Kusturica yet, should give this one a try. Emir Kusturica never disappoints.

I like Kusturica films. This one is very likeable comedy set up in the time of bosnian civil war. Love for humanity and animals is at the forefront of comic situations which are caused by war. Although it is a fiction, the events looked real and similar situations did happen. I did enjoy this film.

A hilarious film on a tragic background. Emir Kusturica is a master of combining comedy and tragidy. Although the film is set on a sinister background of the wars in former Yugoslavia, your heart is light after watching the film.

A beautiful movie built on a negative mirrored image with love and war going hand in hand. A must see, it might be even more appreciated after something like 'Black Cat, White Cat', to get used to the codes of the director in a lighter context if you have never had any Kusturica before.