"Love?! Where did you read that?"
"I haven't read it, I want it that way."
Trajkovic family has been building bridges for generations. But you can't build bridges all the time in the same place, so this profession involves frequent moves from city to city, from country to country. The youngest offspring of this family is already tired of new schools every semester, new friends that he has to leave just as he made them, and most of all, his love life suffers. Shy 17-year-old Budimir Trajkovic needs more time to gather the courage to approach a girl he likes than his family spends in one place. When they finally move to the capital and Budimir experiences true love for the first time, he decides to take his life into his own hands.
This is a coming-of-age story, a story about family, about youthful love, about those things that we all went through in one way or another, that formed us as personalities. The story and its pace are very realistic and natural, the young protagonists, Predrag Bolpacic and Marina Nemet, are not experienced actors, and the camera and direction leave an amateur impression, which is probably a consequence of cheap production, but in this particular case, it just makes the story more believable.
The film is conceived as a romantic and family comedy, in a manner typical of Yugoslav cinema of the 1970s. While our young protagonists carry the dramatic part of the story, Budimir's family gives the film a 'comic relief', similar to the one in "Foolish Years". Ljubisa Samardzic and Milena Dravic have great chemistry and charisma and with their 'love-hate' relationship they almost overshadow the main thread of the story. There are also Mica Tomic in the role of a grandfather (a bit like the one from "Only Fools and Horses"), Bata Zivojinovic, young Neda Arneric, and Sonja Savic and, what many do not notice when watching, Irfan Mensur and Dragan Nikolic lend voices to Budimir and his friend Zvonko.
"The Love Life of Budimir Trajkovic" is not a masterpiece, far from it, but it is a light, relaxed, emotional, at times quite funny, and very dear to me, movie in which, I believe, each of you can find themselves and evoke some fond memories.
7/10.
Trajkovic family has been building bridges for generations. But you can't build bridges all the time in the same place, so this profession involves frequent moves from city to city, from country to country. The youngest offspring of this family is already tired of new schools every semester, new friends that he has to leave just as he made them, and most of all, his love life suffers. Shy 17-year-old Budimir Trajkovic needs more time to gather the courage to approach a girl he likes than his family spends in one place. When they finally move to the capital and Budimir experiences true love for the first time, he decides to take his life into his own hands.
This is a coming-of-age story, a story about family, about youthful love, about those things that we all went through in one way or another, that formed us as personalities. The story and its pace are very realistic and natural, the young protagonists, Predrag Bolpacic and Marina Nemet, are not experienced actors, and the camera and direction leave an amateur impression, which is probably a consequence of cheap production, but in this particular case, it just makes the story more believable.
The film is conceived as a romantic and family comedy, in a manner typical of Yugoslav cinema of the 1970s. While our young protagonists carry the dramatic part of the story, Budimir's family gives the film a 'comic relief', similar to the one in "Foolish Years". Ljubisa Samardzic and Milena Dravic have great chemistry and charisma and with their 'love-hate' relationship they almost overshadow the main thread of the story. There are also Mica Tomic in the role of a grandfather (a bit like the one from "Only Fools and Horses"), Bata Zivojinovic, young Neda Arneric, and Sonja Savic and, what many do not notice when watching, Irfan Mensur and Dragan Nikolic lend voices to Budimir and his friend Zvonko.
"The Love Life of Budimir Trajkovic" is not a masterpiece, far from it, but it is a light, relaxed, emotional, at times quite funny, and very dear to me, movie in which, I believe, each of you can find themselves and evoke some fond memories.
7/10.