Love and Other Crimes (2008) User Reviews

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[dkmountainpark · 4/10 · 15 June 2008]

Perhaps I am missing something from this movie. I sat in front of 6 Serbians who laughed and hooted throughout the movie. Another couple of reviews (on this site) indicate "What on earth is happening in Serbian film and how can we seem MORE?". I say, "What on earth is happening in Serbian films and where is the closest exit so I can leave".

I kept noticing a bunch of disconnects throughout the movie which irritated me. Milutin was fond of Besa me Mucho, supposedly because it reminded him of a previous love. This is understandable...

However, his daughter sings this song often also. Not sure why the daughter sings this song. Perhaps she sings this song to forge a connection to her mobster dad? And why is she chronically depressed and always on the verge of jumping off a building? Is this due to her living in this dismal environment. This theme is never explored or developed.

Stansilav also sings Besa Me Mucho. Why? Is it that this song evokes memories of a happier time? But this happier time was 14 years ago which certainly was no happy time in Serbia as this was during the war. There is a comment late in the movie (from Milutin's old love) that Stanislav looks like Milutin. This seems to intimate that Stanislav is Multin's son. If so, then Stanislav's mother is also Milutin's ex-lover. It is all so very convoluted.

Also, don't know why Milutin left this supposed love of his life (that we see later in the movie) to marry someone else (the mother of his daughter). Was the someone else pregnant? We never know why he left this grand love to take up with this other woman. Perhaps this was meant to point out we often don't know the best parts of our lives until they are in the rear view mirror.

Stanislav and Anica are a little more interesting, but again, Stanislav has been in love with this woman for 14 years supposedly for not much more than watching her nice breasts and seeing her romp in the concrete jungle courtyard in year's past. Oh yes, he also saw her naked body years ago after she had made love to some guy (who then got up and left). She hit the exiting lover over the head with a ladle and Stanislav thought this was engaging. Yes, don't we all hold fond/erotic thoughts of the opposite sex..especially if we are lucky enough to view them nude hitting a lover over the head with a kitchen utensil? These activities from Anica are certainly enough to peak a teenage boy's fancy, but not enough to sustain a love for 14 years.

The end is predictable. Milutin has to go (he is dying) and Stanislav gets killed. Yawn, yawn, snooze, snooze. I would cross this off my list of "must-see movies".

Liked it!

[roadmovie69 · 9/10 · 16 February 2008]

I liked this movie, which I saw at the Berlinale 2008. It even grows after a while - which is a great thing for any work of art (and love) Surely there must have gone a lot of love into making this movie - otherwise its not explainable why this portrait of a grim and Grey Serbian skyscraper quarter is so strong, believable and sometimes even beautiful in a strange way. Here in German Cinema there are a lot of examples of films with a social theme , portraying a dark reality but a lot of times they don't quite succeed -neither in the portrayal of society nor in cinematic terms. This film, coming from a small country like Serbia - which was still a war zone around 10 years ago - is a fresh example how to do it with success.

Less than pointless

[jera021 · 2/10 · 4 October 2008]

I don't know where to start from. Story and screenplay for example: it is as if writers read a book in psychology, especially the part which contains examples of why are people getting depressed, and then put it all together in one pathetic script. There are some questions I wanted to ask: Why does a 14-year old girl go to the top of the building twice a day to commit suicide? Is the solution for suicide attempt singing "Besa me mucho" and eating two dozens of oranges a day? Who has ever got a girl by talking of how he was masturbating watching her when they were younger? I don't know much about life of petty criminals in Serbia, but do they really kill each others pets when they don't get their 30-40 Euros of extortion money per month from local pancake shop? Why does everybody in this film sing "Besa me mucho" for so many times? Pretty likable song became very boring one. Why does everybody have to be so unhappy? They've all failed in every aspect of their lifes: family, business, love, parenthood... Some characters are just thrown in to tell their pathetic stories and prolong film for almost an hour. No sign of happiness in this one. My expectations were big but bad script and some poor performances by some good Serbian actors (the script was obviously not the inspiring one) disappointed me. In the end you don't really care about who lives or who dies (although you know it after 5 minutes). Only good thing about this waste of time are filming locations. If you want to watch good Serbian film from the last decade, watch "The Trap".

Serbian cinema has done it again at the Berlinale

[katchita · 8/10 · 14 February 2008]

You may have seen my raves over Klopka from last year's Berlinale, but this year's offering was Love and Other Crimes (Ljubav i Drugi Zlocini in the original Serbian). I got excited the moment the film started rolling and I saw it starred Klopka's haunting Anica Dobra. At the end I stood up and asked, "What on earth is happening in Serbian film and how can we see MORE?" As an American, I can't help viewing the societal collapses endemic to Eastern Europe as the stimulus behind this post-modern film noir. But the director surprised me by answering my query in this vein with a note of optimism. Sure, of course, the end of open warfare is a definite positive, but to then see your society descend into the grips of common criminals in the inexorable name of capitalism, can hardly be optimistic!? I left the theater with the feeling that this particular young director had somehow surpassed himself, overreached his inherent ability. How wonderful when this is in service to art, and with the endlessly expressive face of Dobra, it is not hard to imagine this happening. Then, in further researching the film, I see a common thread -- Srdjan Koljevic, the co-writer -- and ask myself if perhaps he is the one to watch?

This film is shallow lie and it's embarrassing 'cause it has been shown on international festivals

[umamahesvare · 1/10 · 16 March 2009]

I saw Stefan Arsenijevic short movies,and I really liked them all,he seemed like a extraordinary talented director,and I couldn't wait to see his new movie -Love and other crimes-. Bur right from beginning,I was feeling embarrassed cause I'm sitting and watching that on a big screen. These are the reasons:

-Screenplay is really lame,situations that are happening are not understandable(especially that thing with song-b e s a m e m u c h o--disaster).And biggest mistake is -screenplay looks like it should point to some real problems in Belgrade,and it's completely untrue.I mean,it looks like it refers to reality and it's not.Loan sharks and crimes like that in 2008?! It's like when Americans make movie about war in Bosnia... Characters are insufficiently elaborated ,their relationships are pathetic and shallow,and not logical.Like he was shooting without a script,and solved problems by adding characters and dialogs just like that. I cannot say anything about actors,they are all good,Stefan also made a lot of good camera cadres of New Belgrade and also cadres are generally beautiful,but whole movie is not good,I really ask myself-WHAT happened to Serbian movie,we had really good screenplays in our past,why are intelligent people like Stefan exploiting these subjects in so shallow and stupid way?

I would not go to see his next movie

Not everyones taste

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 15 July 2008]

As someone else (reviewer) stated here too, after "Klopka" comes this gem of Serbian cinema. A slow moving love drama, that's not really trying to blend in.

While you might think or expect conventional love drama fare, you will be treated to somewhat more complex (dare I say even more philosophical)! As stated in the summary line it won't be to anyone's taste, especially if you're more in the blockbuster area, then this won't be your cup of tea. Well I liked it and you will too, if you let yourself into the characters and don't mind one song (Besame...) being repeated a few times in the movie ...

the most unusual cinematic love story

[gospodinBezkrai · 10/10 · 19 April 2008]

Serbian cinema is again at the tops! This was a love story of the kind nobody else would think to put on screen. Yet it is so much more closer to those (un)happening in reality. Very sad and very deep and very simple film. Just a day of a few people in their late youth, in a Belgrade suburb of tower blocks, illustrates the throes of an entire generation caught in the postcommunist period (or shall I say, the postcommunist abyss).

Leaving everything behind and starting a new life somewhere else is not as easy as we know it from the movies. Staying, on the other hand, is a limbo. But when your heart is so kind, is ever a new beginning possible?

'Besa me mucho' runs a hundred times, it is the only soundtrack. The grey concrete blocks are unexpectedly beautiful, it is the only landscape. The petty post-communist gangsters are confusingly human and sympathetic, it is the main characters.

Stefan Arsenijevic fairly got the director's award of the 2008 Sofia Film Festival 'for the humanity and lyricism of his style'. The other Serbian entry, 'Hadersfild', was also a very powerful film.

Of Love, Crimes...and need to change

[uros-antic · 9/10 · 2 March 2008]

You know you watched a really good film, when the credits end, and you caught yourself still sitting and thinking about the movie and all the messages entangled into it. I know it happened to me after Watching "Love and Other Crimes". The all-too-familiar ambient of the New Belgrade, Socialist style buildings and the people living there become a stage where the whole action of the movie is happening. What you see is people caught in the web of the past decisions, now time long regretting them, and without any bright future on their horizon. Their lives are put into the scope through the actions of the main protagonist, Anica, and her last 24 hours before permanently leaving this dark and gloomy place. She exacts her own justice (or should I say revenge) to all the people who where or still are important to her. But, when the young boy from the hood, Stefan, admits that he's in love with her, everything is about to change… This movie is about two most important things: Love…and change. It goes without saying, one cannot exist without other. Without love, there is no reason to change. But without love for yourself, there is no need to change, and that is far more destructive way to look and be in this world. From the begging to the end, this film shows us that by turning to yourself you start to heal not just your own mind and soul, but you also start the same thing in the people around you. Kudos to Stefan and the whole crew of this wonderful movie!

Tedium, a thin plot and forced artiness don't help at all, nor does Kostic's non-charisma.

[fedor8 · 7 July 2022]

A ridiculously drawn-out film, its main crime being high tedium. The plot is quite thin and yet stretched to an unbearable 100 minutes - which could have been very easily squeezed into half an hour. Perhaps then the story would be more effective.

Although, that story does have serious flaws. The main issue is that the mafia is romanticized and idealized, yet again, for the millionth time. The head of a small gang is so full of understanding and compassion for people (as do all criminals, right?), so much so that he doesn't even mind that Anica Dobra intends to leave him - or even to rob his safe. He doesn't even get upset that she robs him! He even LEAVES her a surplus of money in the safe so she can have more to nick - which is as realistic as Sean Penn being nominated for the Nobel Prize in Physics. And speaking of that, it's not even clear HOW Stojanovic knows that she intends to rob him, because she doesn't tell anyone, except the "kid" who didn't pass on that information because he's in love with her.

Even the "kid" is a romantic, a dreamer - even a hobby magician. So... Legija, the Zemun clan, and all the other notorious Belgrade gangsters, were they exceptions then? Misunderstood? Heroes even? Yeah, the typical Belgrade criminal is a romantic, a good honest pure soul who plays around with kittens and fluffy bunnies. It's that old anti-social amoral left-wing tradition of portraying hos, pimps and thieves in ways that can only be described as ultra-naive and completely stupid.

The film consists of many dull scenes, all in the same mold: a character says something, and then we wait a minute for the other person to reply. And then we wait another minute for someone to say something again, while they both stare blankly at the wall or a window, and so on in circles. At least if the characters had something profound or interesting to say, but that's hardly ever the case here. I can watch drawn-out dramas, but only if the dialogues are interesting or if at least the plot is usable.

But what am I on about, when we all know that stretching time = art, right? A well-known garbage formula that 90% of all film students and critics rely on. Because, somehow, when nonsense is stretched into much longer time segments, it miraculously becomes "profound".

The less said about that whole little autistic girl (?) nonsense, the better... She regularly stands on the edge of the building, ready to jump (?). What is that supposed to represent? Undoubtedly, a predictable and cheesy attempt to "artify" the movie more, to appeal to critics who like such bizarre, illogical, unnecessary and unrelated scenes. Why doesn't anyone take care of the girl if they know she's unstable? In order to give the film that "arty" note that it desperately needs, the writer hopes that some inept European-festival juror will hopefully notice the film that way hence give it half a chance to pick up some lousy irrelevant award reserved mostly for films that don't have a large audience. That old hipster shtick: if the film is intended for a small audience then it must be artistic by default, not commercial. Movie "logic".

There's some other such "forced art" malarkey, for example the scene in which the porn dealer doesn't talk to women directly.

Kostic is boring and utterly bland. An acting clan nepotist, too uninteresting to play the main characters, too untalented and uncharismatic. That's way more responsibility than he can handle, having the weight of the movie's lousy script on his back. Only a select few are good enough to hold a movie together, especially a bad movie, and he is light-years away from this.