This movie was a big commercial hit in Serbia, aggressively pushed (including unprecedented fear-mongering campaign and police backlash against piracy) by a smug and immensely powerful Serbian film mogul, Bjelogrlic, producer of this movie who also signed it as co-director (he was originally a popular actor but his directing powers are quite limited). While Bjelogrlic, Serbian Harvey Weinstein of sorts, also known for his violent drunken outbursts and sucker punch-beatings of fellow filmmakers, is epitome of gate-keeping abuse and corruption of the small Serbian film industry (he has a very specific issue with the cult rebellious movie of independent production, "Serbian film", that was really inspired by modus operandi he and his kind earnestly follow), is not the most pleasant of power-brokers with a self-serving agenda, the movie itself objectively has a lot going for it. It is a somewhat fictionalized story of a tragic life of legendary Toma Zdravkovic, widely considered the greatest and most profound Serbian singer-songwriter of soulful folk-style music, who is much loved through the Balkan region. The acting is earnest and convincing, music recreations are well done (credit to Zeljko Joksimovic, who should also be credited for the noble initiative for this project), and movie elicits powerful emotions. It follows a successful formula for such biopics, and artistically it is not at all original, but as a commercial manipulative melodrama, it works. The movie skips, somewhat incoherently (that part certainly could have been done better in more competent hands), between essentially two timelines, one following Toma's life, and another following his dying days. A parallel to the dying days of Yugoslavia (the dates do coincide) is crammed in for artistic pretension purposes, but luckily, this is not overdone.
The real crime of this movie is its in-authenticity of some key plot elements and biased, if not outright insulting, portrayal of a few legendary artists from the era (conveniently, dead and/or of different national backgrounds). The whole dying timeline of Toma, which is half of the movie, relies on a completely invented story of doctor and his dying wife, who Toma supposedly wrote one of his famous songs for, and who almost steals the show with her tragic scenes. Giving such weight to an invented personality really cheapens the story, one really feels cheated with disrespect that boggles the mind. While the rest of the movie mostly follows Toma's life story with the level of artistic liberties taken on par with other such biopics (including another key and fabricated character, music manager, which does not ruin the movie so much), a couple of portrayals of the famous artists from the era are also pretty outrageous. Mika Antic, famous bohemian poet of profound philosophical depth and elegant perfection, who was slandered in passing, comes off as a flimsy charlatan. The worst offence was perhaps done against Silvana Armenulic, famous Muslim singer who died young in a car crash, who had a hit song written by Toma and also helped him early on (and also her tennis player husband who was skillfully vilified as a shallow snob). A major character in the movie, Silvana is portrayed as calculating, if good-hearted, person, who manipulates love-struck Toma into giving her the famous hit-song, and is only too eager to fit into Belgrade jet-set, betraying her roots. While dramatically this works to an extent, the whole love story, supposedly a key one in the protagonist life, is unfortunately quite fake.
While the movie does capture some of the essence of Toma's emotional and tragic life, one can only regret some artistic decisions that lessen the quality of the movie and make it feel somewhat of a fraud, perhaps in accordance with the key producer of this movie, but failing quite a bit short of a biopic Toma Zdravkovic deserves. Bjelogrlic may get away, pockets full, with this movie just like he gets away with beatings of his colleagues unpunished, but the movie, despite of some strong points and commendable work by much of the crew, does leave a somewhat mixed aftertaste.
The real crime of this movie is its in-authenticity of some key plot elements and biased, if not outright insulting, portrayal of a few legendary artists from the era (conveniently, dead and/or of different national backgrounds). The whole dying timeline of Toma, which is half of the movie, relies on a completely invented story of doctor and his dying wife, who Toma supposedly wrote one of his famous songs for, and who almost steals the show with her tragic scenes. Giving such weight to an invented personality really cheapens the story, one really feels cheated with disrespect that boggles the mind. While the rest of the movie mostly follows Toma's life story with the level of artistic liberties taken on par with other such biopics (including another key and fabricated character, music manager, which does not ruin the movie so much), a couple of portrayals of the famous artists from the era are also pretty outrageous. Mika Antic, famous bohemian poet of profound philosophical depth and elegant perfection, who was slandered in passing, comes off as a flimsy charlatan. The worst offence was perhaps done against Silvana Armenulic, famous Muslim singer who died young in a car crash, who had a hit song written by Toma and also helped him early on (and also her tennis player husband who was skillfully vilified as a shallow snob). A major character in the movie, Silvana is portrayed as calculating, if good-hearted, person, who manipulates love-struck Toma into giving her the famous hit-song, and is only too eager to fit into Belgrade jet-set, betraying her roots. While dramatically this works to an extent, the whole love story, supposedly a key one in the protagonist life, is unfortunately quite fake.
While the movie does capture some of the essence of Toma's emotional and tragic life, one can only regret some artistic decisions that lessen the quality of the movie and make it feel somewhat of a fraud, perhaps in accordance with the key producer of this movie, but failing quite a bit short of a biopic Toma Zdravkovic deserves. Bjelogrlic may get away, pockets full, with this movie just like he gets away with beatings of his colleagues unpunished, but the movie, despite of some strong points and commendable work by much of the crew, does leave a somewhat mixed aftertaste.