Year: 1980
Director: Slobodian Sijan
Country: Yugoslavia
Language: Serbo-Croatian
One of my favourite films is Emir Kusturica's Underground (1995) and upon viewing another Yugoslavian film Slobodian Sijan's Who's Singin' Over There? (1980) I was delighted to find that they share the same screenwriter Dusan Kovacevic. The latter film ends at the precise moment Underground begins. This makes for an excellent double feature.
It's April 5, 1941, somewhere in Serbia. A group of people go on a bus to Belgrade, on a journey that will change their lives forever.
Who's Singing Over There? is a hysterical dark comedy that works as national allegory. It satires the official Titoist ideology of bratstvo i jedinstvo (“brotherhood and unity”) which was present throughout the time of Communist Party rule. No character feels compelled to be united with another; even the married couple go through a difficult time when a more suave male tried to indulge the groom's wife.
The only protagonists in this picture are the two singing Roma. Perhaps due to their outsider status in Yugoslavian society, they are distanced from the main characters and put into perspective how ludicrous the others seem to be. The writers' treatment of the long disenfranchised Eastern European racial group is fairly refreshing to see; as even in contemporary media the Roma are viewed quite stereo-typically.
There are many themes and allegories to unpack with Who's Signing Over There? It's a film I intend on re-watching many times to understand its full social/historical context. It's an entertaining picture from a remarkable country that no longer exists.
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