Pejzazi u magli (1984) User Reviews

a tough one

[dragokin · 12 March 2023]

This is a tough one, not only because of the subject matter. As it is often the case with the movies from former Yugoslavia, they offer a glimpse into the spirit of the era. At the same time they tend to be burdened by a mediocre script and, more often than not, a subpar delivery by the actors.

At the time when Pejzazi u magli has been released, heroin addiction was still a somewhat exotic topic in the former Yugoslavia. The contemporaries claim how the drug started to spread in the beginning of the 1980s. As it turned out, the children from well-off families were particularly susceptible to the drug.

Therefore I found the motif of a daughter mingling with the wrong crowd to be plausible, especially since they moved from Zagreb to Belgrade and were confronted with a faster tempo of life in the capital. This freedom of movement of sorts was not uncommon back then. We see that with a casual excursion to Dubrovnik and Mljet later in the movie.

The lead actress was no less than Anamarija Petricevic of Smogovci TV show fame. I can only assume this was her attempt at character roles. Also some heavyweight actors of the era were to be seen, both from Serbia and from Croatia.

I do have my doubt about the level of realism of the story, but I must say that some of the side actors seemed as if working on this movie wasn't their first contact with heroin. What did annoy me though was the way most of the actors used slang terms, pronouncing them as if they were names of exotic chemical compounds or magical formulas that shouldn't be said out loud. People, especially in the circles described here, simply didn't talk like that.

I kid you not, I believe this cheap trash actually won some awards.

[fedor8 · 9 July 2022]

Jovanovic is a semi-amateur. People who have failed to grasp this until now will not understand it after reading this text either. He had already made that laughable "rebel" movie with Nikolic, proving what a hack he was. However, this one is in a way even weaker, although not by much because we are comparing two really bad films.

The kind of utter nonsense that passed off as "great cinematic achievement" in Yugoslavia would at best be regarded as a mediocre underground film or a failed experiment by a non-promising young film student.

Banal dialog, amateur acting, very bad editing, one-dimensional and shallow characters, mostly apathetic and bland actors, a pointless and aimless plot, and just general incompetence of the director - these are all integral parts of this cheap rubbish.

The editing is fascinatingly inept. The scenes seem to have been cut with early proto cave scissors. It's as if a drug addict had edited this, which would be pretty ironic.

The female lead is a total dilettante. I sense a very strong whiff of nepotism; perhaps she's the daughter of a YU army general or some high-ranking Communards Party official, or perhaps simply the producer's niece. After all, it is well-known that there were the most common ways you entered into show-biz (both film and rock/pop music) during that era. And that's predominantly why the vast majority of movies and rock bands from that era stink so much. (As they do now.)

The other young actors also recite their lines like robots, or like children in a school play. As one character says his line, the other immediately follows without any pause: no consideration is given to the timing. Intonation is also lacking, because the dialog is pronounced in a mechanical manner. The actors simply recite their text like parrots, like total beginners. Jovanovic even managed to bring Bata Zivotinja and Serbedzija down to this level, to his level.

The characters are uninteresting and unlikable, so it doesn't matter to the viewer whether they get off the drugs or not. This also makes it difficult to develop interest in the story because everything revolves around drug use. The combination of bad acting and vapid characters makes for a very boring sitting.

The plot is chaotic, clumsily jumping from scene to scene, from one location to another, which is made worse by the inept editing. Totally random encounters between characters define certain events. For example, the completely absurd way in which the drug dealer frees Lela from the police. No explanation at all how he managed to find those two prisoners and the policeman, how he know where and when they were going, or that she was arrested. He simply appears out of nowhere and releases her from the train, like in a cheesy comic book or a kids cartoon.

It's totally unconvincing with what ease they steal jewelry from the store. If robbing stores were really this easy then no one would ever have to disguise themselves or even sneak around.

This is an amateur attempt at a serious subject. They should have tried doing a junkie comedy instead, even with this poor cast. It would have sucked but it may have turned out marginally less tedious.