The Promising Boy (1981) User Reviews

One of the great hidden gems of post-punk in film

[jsmog · 9/10 · 16 December 2014]

Many of the things that I love about this film are personal - the characters were my age in 1981, the music is the music I listened to, and two of my best friends in high school were Serbian. When we saw this film at a UCLA festival in 1988 with their parents, I'll never forget after the credits rolled, and their mom stood up and slapped them. It hit a bit too close to home for her.

A medical student gets hit in the head by his girlfriend, a blow that unleashes his inner punk rocker. Like other films of this era, this one perfectly captures this unbottled angst. The film itself is thrown in your face gently, with a lo-fi background of old phones, tape players and late '70s tech that seems nostalgic now, but at the time was groundbreaking in exploring how music was liberating young people around the world, even in Yugoslavia. It hints at subjects like gender-identity and sexual equality that did not really surface until a decade later.

It's also, incidentally, an excellent compendium of music from the New Wave/post-punk scene in Yugoslavia at this time.

zasto me svi udaraju u glavu?

[deckokojiobecava · 7/10 · 11 February 2010]

The Promising Lad (1981), a quirky little drama and comedy set around the circle of characters from the Belgrade New Wave scene at the dawning of the 80's, with some great music from the local new wave/postpunk bands of the era, and with some songs written for the movie.

Quick set-up - young Belgrade student-type guy, after some "accidents" and head trauma, starts coming to different terms with his life and his surroundings, while getting involved in Belgrade underground new wave scene...

Solid little flick, and it's one of the few homeborn movies of the time that doesn't feel much "heavy" - it's rather entertaining but also quite thoughtful social drama.

7/10.

What it means to be really free

[ereinion · 10/10 · 26 April 2015]

The protagonist of this film is called Slobodan, which means free. I think that represents the main theme of this film-what does it mean and take to become really free? He is a promising medical student who seemingly lives a perfect life: he's a good son, a good boyfriend who has a good girlfriend and a good future. Then one day, it all changes when he gives a lift to a Swiss adventure-seeker named Clavis. He has sex with her and she calls him "the promising boy", which is the title of the film. Of course, it turns his world upside down and after receiving a bad blow to his head from his angry girlfriend (with an oar, of all things), he loses his mind-or you might say finds it.

He goes on a search for his real self, which leads him to cutting his hair and going to bed with several women, including his girlfriend's mother. He clashes violently with his authoritative father who doesn't accept his radical behavior and is then left to manage by himself. He meets a group of musicians through a girl he bedded, Pit and VD. They are played by two real-life famous musicians, who were then members of one of the best new wave bands from Serbia and Yugoslavia.

Anyway, this movie represents the individual's breakaway from the society's constraints, symbolized in Slobodan's free and uninhibited sex life and his musician lifestyle and new haircut as well. He even writes a song with homosexual undertones, despite not being a homosexual. He is out to shock and rebel against everything that is considered normal and acceptable. Ergo, he is free from every sort of norm. This is what this film explores, does it really make you free to break every rule of the society or does it just make you feel like an outcast. In the end Slobodan returns to his previous life, after a motorbike accident where he again receives a blow to the head. His lost weekend is now over and he returns to his girlfriend and his parents. The freedom experiment has now ended. Or so he thinks...

The cast is really top notch here, with Aleksandar Bercek delivering perhaps his strongest role ever. Rade Markovic is also excellent as his father and Branislav Lecic also appears in one of his first movie roles as his karate instructor friend. Slobodan Aligrudic, Dusica Zegarac and Bata Zivojinovic also appear. The soundtrack is excellent and features songs from all the best new wave bands of that time, which is another treat this movie has to offer. I think it's a forgotten classic of the Yugoslav cinema and I give it a 10.