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The series “Romani Voices” is giving people of the Roma community the opportunity to publish their opinions. The following text was written by Laura Moldovan. It is not a film review. It does not question the ability of Kusturica as a director. This text describes the perception of Laura Moldovan. It is her analysis of the “gypsies” that Kusturica shows in his films and an analysis of what these constructed “gypsies” and their caricatured world do with the perceptions of those who see these award-winning and highly acclaimed films.

The text is divided into 4 parts: an intro and 3 individual texts for different movies.

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
You are here: Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

Part 4: „Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children” (2006)

by Laura Moldovan

The film “All the invisible children” was produced as part of a UNICEF project and consists of a total of 7 short films by 8 directors. The film was released in 2006. Kusturica contributed to this project as one of these 8 directors with his short film “Blue Gipsy.

About his work on this short film, the filmmaker Kusturica says:

“I have expressed my observations, my obsessions. Someone gave me a key that I turned into a script. “

The title “Blue Gipsy” refers to Roma with blue eyes, this is seen as a symbol for something good, something extraordinary.

The main character Uros has spent a long time in a juvenile detention center. He has mixed feelings about his own release. He does not know what the future will bring if he has to live with his father again, who beats him and forces him to steal. Back in freedom, Uros is almost caught stealing. His flight from the crime ends up in juvenile prison again. An act he chooses consciously. The psychological level of this story is remarkable. It is implied that even in juvenile prison, Uros would have a better chance of getting himself and his life under control than within his joint family. In addition, throughout the whole movie it is suggested that Uros fate is already sealed: He belongs in prison, that is his place.

Generally, the Roma in this film are portrayed as thieves and deceivers, as bad and violent parents who keep their children uneducated. Another scene showing this is the one at the train station: a big begging Roma family is doing a show, playing music, singing and dancing. In the meantime, the enthusiastic audience gets robbed. With this Kusturica wants to imply that Roma abuse their music and “joie de vivre” to deceive and exploit people (see YouTube video). The film suggests that it would be in everyone’s interest for them to live secluded and isolated from the outside world and mainstream society.

Movies like these are a big contributing factor to Roma being generally seen as inferior, parasitic people who have no place in society, which they neither seek nor want or can ever find. For the audience, negative prejudices against this ethnic group are confirmed and reinforced, and stereotypes about crime, caginess and violence are reproduced. Kusturica conveys that the Roma themselves are to blame for their unfortunate lives and that the poor living conditions that many Roma endure are not the result of centuries of discrimination, but due to the lack of understanding the European society and the failure of members of the minority.

A classic anti-gypsy film, which probably would have found the same kind of approval in the 1930s, as does today.

Further artikels releated to Emir Kusturica:

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
You are here: Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

The post Opinion | Romani Voices | Part 4: Opinion on „Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children” (2006) by Laura Moldovan appeared first on GipsyTv & GipsyRadio.

Romanes | Rumänisch | Deutsch

The series “Romani Voices” is giving people of the Roma community the opportunity to publish their opinions. The following text was written by Laura Moldovan. It is not a film review. It does not question the ability of Kusturica as a director. This text describes the perception of Laura Moldovan. It is her analysis of the “gypsies” that Kusturica shows in his films and an analysis of what these constructed “gypsies” and their caricatured world do with the perceptions of those who see these award-winning and highly acclaimed films.

The text is divided into 4 parts: an intro and 3 individual texts for different movies.

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
You are here: Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

Part 3 | “Black Cat, White Cat” (1998)

by Laura Moldovan

After winning the Cannes award for “Best Director” for “Time of the Gypsies”, Emir Kusturica starts shooting “Arizona Dream” in New York. He was able to win over well-known actors such as Johnny Depp and Jerry Lewis for this production. This is the beginning of a difficult time in the biography of Kusturica.

The work on Arizona Dream strikes him hard – his father dies and his homeland Yugoslavia falls apart in the war. After the death of his father, Kusturica returns to ex-Yugoslavia and shoots his most courageous film “Underground”, in which he critically reflects on the history of his homeland in the last 50 years. “I’m not trying to say that I’m a genius, but “Underground” was the strongest attack on Milosevic,” Kusturica said in an interview with The Guardian in 1999.

At this point in his career, Kusturica actually wanted to stop making films. He felt as he had fulfilled his “duty” and sensed strong political pressure. Afterwards began the work on the film “Black cat, white cat”. Due to his negative experiences with the movie “Underground”, Emir Kusturica reconsiders his thematic (critical) orientation and his style and decides to change the tone of voice, to cover more shallow themes and fade his films away into “happy endings”.

The original title of the movie “Black Cat, White Cat” was “Acrobatic Music”. A scene that makes it easy to understand how this working title came about is the one showing a group of musicians tied to a tree as if it were the most normal thing in the world. This implies that the craziest things and situations are common in the life of the Roma. Kusturica allows himself to let his imagination run  wild in this film and to come up with the most ridiculous and strange hypotheses about Roma and their culture.

The central topic of the film are weddings that take place despite of deaths in the family. The “happy ending” comes with the resurrection of the old men – symbolizing the “survival of the Roma” – and the victory of love. The main characters, Zare and Ida, are the only “normal” people portrayed in the movie. On the cruise ship, they are relieved as they leave their relatives behind, illustrating Kusturica’s idea that only outside of the Roma community one can live a normal life.
“Happy ending” | See YouTube Clip from Min 03:30

Strange, obscure and animally primitive

In Kusturica’s film, numerous bizarre characters appear: A bearded woman, an overweight mermaid, a green-haired bodyguard, the black obelisk, an overweight diva who can draw nails out of wood with her butt and countless others. Also, the magic can’t be missing from this movie. Due to a ritual made by the old one Zarije, he is only dead for one day in order to stop his nephew’s wedding. The grandson Zare also knows some magic tricks.

The fact that Kusturica is an admirer of Federico Fellini is also reflected in this film: he combines the daily life of the Roma with the circus and by that acquires the nickname “Fellini of the Balkans”. “I am proud to have discovered how this guy makes his films and that I can make mine in the same way. I use these little tricks, like a magician who sees a circus and goes to work in another. “(September 1999)

From the total chaos of this film – a circus in which the Roma coexist with animals – we conclude that Kusturica wanted to imply the similarity of the Roma to animals and their identification with them. In almost every scene in the film, animals are shown: dogs, goats, a peacock as a pet, cats as witnesses of a wedding, a pig eating a Trabant. Especially the geese can’t be missing as a recurring motif in Kusturica’s work. They are everywhere – in the yard, on the street, in the restaurant and even in the house. At the end of the film, they are even used instead of towels. Hereby Kusturica reminds of his favorite tale about Roma and geese.

Kusturica wants to show the primitiveness of the Roma.

“They are medieval, but they have cellphones”,

he explains in an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian in 1999.

If it were for Emir Kusturica, we would probably still have to live in a golden cage for another hundred years, isolated from any technology. Like in the zoo, his audience could make fun of our suffering and our lives, just like in the circus.

A racist classic that makes it easy for the audience to put Roma into a convenient drawer of stereotypes only to take them out whenever they are needed.

Further artikels releated to Emir Kusturica:

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
You are here: Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

The post Opinion | Romani Voices | Part 3: “Black Cat, White Cat” (1998) by Laura Moldovan appeared first on GipsyTv & GipsyRadio.

The series “Romani Voices” is giving people of the Roma community the opportunity to publish their opinions. The following text was written by Laura Moldovan. It is not a film review. It does not question the ability of Kusturica as a director. This text describes the perception of Laura Moldovan. It is her analysis of the “gypsies” that Kusturica shows in his films and an analysis of what these constructed “gypsies” and their caricatured world do with the perceptions of those who see these award-winning and highly acclaimed films.

The text is divided into 4 parts: an intro and 3 individual texts for different movies.

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

You are here: Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)

by Laura Moldovan

For generations now Roma activists and Roma who are politically active, have stated that the time has come for us take back our rights and stand up against injustice. For someone who has not seen Emir Kusturica’s piece “Time of the Gypsies”, the title might just as well address this emancipation of the Roma. Until one has to admit as a viewer, that “Time of the Gypsies” should rather have been called “Time of the anti-gypsies”.

About “Time of the Gypsies” Emir Kusturica said in 1989:

“Why the gypsies? The only reason is that I was shocked that you could sell children.”

Although human trafficking is a socio-political issue that affects not only Roma, but also many other groups of people worldwide, Kusturica diminishes the Roma in his film to this subject matter.

Kusturica decides after his research to represent the Roma in the film as the mafia. At the same time, he is selling this decision as an open-mined choice that enables him to depicture and to become acquired with a different, a foreign culture for the first time:

“Time of the Gypsies was my first step out of my garden – towards a different culture than my own. I started to learn how to look at another society “,

he explains in an interview with the French magazine “Le Monde” January 23, 1993.
Kusturica conceals the fact that Roma have been actively involved in shaping the Balkan culture for centuries. According to him this minority in Europe is foreign and exotic.

Following the release of the film “Guardian Angel” (1987) by Goran Paskaljevic, Kusturica came across a newspaper article about a case of child trafficking, in witch rumors circulated that the perpetrators were members of the ethnic group of the Roma. As part of his research Kusturica spoke with the authors of the article, journalists and spent a lot of time in a Roma community in Macedonia.

Since the Roma in his work are always referred to as “gypsies” it is probably a sign that Kusturica has only poorly researched the history of our people.

From the beginning, he is focusing exclusively on the representation of negative aspects of our life reality and always ready to embellish and inflate it.

Magical, mafia, godless and homeless

At times, the movie “Time of the Gypsies” even looks like a remake of the Godfather I & II. Kusturica has obviously got some ideas off Francis Ford Coppola.
Apart from the external similarity of the protagonists Perhan and Michael Corleone, as well as Ahmed and Vito Corleone, it also covers the same subjects as Coppola’s Mafia epos: The question of the successor of the godfather and of course the rise and fall of a family, a mafia clan.

For “Time of the Gypsies” Kusturica apparently also got inspired by the film “Amarcord” by Federico Fellini. Themes such as weddings and banquets in nature, a crazy storyteller at the beginning of the film, the accordion and even a scene with turkey-hypnosis are reminiscent of Fellini’s circus world.

The film is based on an extremely racist world view represented through various motives: The original title of the film (“Dom za vešanje”) in English basically means “The house to hang “. A scene in the movie is particularly fitting for the title, symbolizing that Roma have no real homes, no homeland and place in the world. This scene also stands for the steady “survival of the Roma”, who are still there even if others blow up or destroy their homes. For sales and marketing purposes the film title was changed abroad to “Time of the Gypsies”.

Weddings are a recurring theme in all of Kusturica’s films, including this one. Already the opening scene of the film shows a Romni in a wedding dress insulting her completely drunk husband and accusing him of having destroyed her life. This scene is repeated at the end in a different constellation.
Kusturica implies that Roma are miserable and bad husbands and not only destroy their own lives, but also the lives of their wives.

The main reason behind the behavior of all acting characters is being explained at the beginning of the film (see YouTube clip) by an obviously insane protagonist. He complains that he has been deprived of his freedom, had his wings and soul. Again, this imposes restlessness and homelessness on the Roma. My interpretation is that Kusturica wants to imply that the Roma do not want to integrate themselves but rather stubbornly insist on their alleged freedom in order to maintain their “own way of life”, even if this is disturbing to other people and causes them discomfort.

Another theme that shapes the film is religion combined with mysticism and magic. Also at the beginning of the film a legend about God and the Roma is introduced to the story. The legend tells how God came down to earth and left again because he could not stand the Roma. Thus, the Roma would ultimately be responsible for their unfortunate life situation, since they have even chased away the Lord himself. This legend does not exist within the Roma community, it is Kusturica’s invention. His psychological motivation behind it is questionable. Maybe he, like many directors, suffers from a God complex? Maybe he wanted to add even more magic and mystique to the film in order to reinforce the stereotypes?

Kusturica himself stated in an interview with the French journal L’Express (1989) that magic belongs to the life of the Roma. Therefore, he had given the character Perhan telekinetic abilities and equipped his grandmother with healing powers in the movie. The motif of the deterred God and the wedding, also returns at the end and creates a frame around the whole action: In the last scene of the film, a Roma prays to a fallen crucifix, which he picks up from the ground and hangs back on the wall. But when he tries to negotiate with God, the cross falls to the ground again.

Time of the geese

Kusturica explained in an interview his reference to geese in his films. He had heard a legend that highly fascinated him, according to which geese would have brought the “Gypsies” from India to Europe two thousand years ago. In gratitude, the Roma cut off the geese’s wings. The symbolism of the truncated wings appears again and again in Kusturica’s work and represents the loss of freedom. In fact, Roma left the Indian subcontinent about a thousand years ago – most likely without the help of geese.

For Kusturica, legends sound better than reality. Through them he can live out his racist ways of thinking and artistically strengthen Antigypsyism in our society.

If we want to believe Kusturica’s films, the Roma are destroying their lives single-handedly. They are not Europeans, but ever foreign people who must be endured by the native Europeans. After his box office hit “Time of the Gypsies” Kusturica brought his movie as a punk opera on the stages of Paris in 2007, musically accompanied by his band, the “No Smoking Orchestra”.

The gypsies of Emir Kusturica lost their feathers a long time ago. Whether Emir Kusturica should lose his pen also, is an open question.

Further artikels releated to Emir Kusturica:

Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

You are here: Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

The post Opinion | Romani Voices | Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies”(1989) by Laura Moldovan appeared first on GipsyTv & GipsyRadio.

Article by Laura Moldovan | Translation by Samuel Mago

Deutsch | Romanes | Rumänisch

The series “Romani Voices” is giving people of the Roma community the opportunity to publish their opinions. The following text was written by Laura Moldovan. It is not a film review. It does not question the ability of Kusturica as a director. This text describes the perception of Laura Moldovan. It is her analysis of the “gypsies” that Kusturica shows in his films and an analysis of what these constructed “gypsies” and their caricatured world do with the perceptions of those who see these award-winning and highly acclaimed films.

The text is divided into 4 parts: an intro and 3 individual texts for different movies.

You are here:Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

 More information and Emir Kusturica´s biographie here

Part 1: INTRO

Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies “

by Laura Moldovan

He is probably the best-known filmmaker in the word of the Roma people. Hardly any name is as linked to the cinematography of the Roma as the name of this Gadjo. The admirers of his work are convinced that his movies are introducing them to the real life of the Roma.It almost feels as if they had spent their childhood with the main characters of “Black Cat, White Cat”. Even the Roma themselves seem to identify themselves with his movies.
Only at second glance the cat jumps out of the bag: The work of Emir Kusturica is merely the stereotypical representation of what is known by the majority of the people as “Gypsies”. And Antigypsyism becomes a box office bomb.

Black benefactor, white liar

Kusturica is a very intelligent person. He is consciously twisting the facts as he pleases:

“The Gypsies of my film survive like insects, according to the principle of the natural selection, according to the beauty of the colours and the shapes of the wings.“

he says in 1999 in an interview published in the German Novo Magazine, 1999. He is calling us “insects” thereby using the rhetoric of the Nazis, but immediately continues to aestheticize the sentence with beautiful words. So – Gypsies are insects, parasites. But they are also beautiful insects, right?
In 2002, Emir Kusturica was named Goodwill-Ambassador by UNICEF. “I wanted to help the kids as much as I can” he said in an interview with www.zmag.org. The fact that he is actually putting the future of the young Roma generation at stake with his films by portraying them as parasites of the lowest stratum of society obviously doesn’t matter.

“I was raised in a middle-class family close to the place where the Gypsies lived [in Sarajevo], and I was always enthusiastic about their freedom, the way they accepted life, their direct connection to joy, and their strength and optimism. Gypsies have a very bad position in society because every middle-class mother-fucker likes to have somebody beneath him. If you go to the district in Skopje in Macedonia where the Gypsies live, you’ll find a lot of people who hate them and who want nothing more than to be one step above them”

said Kusturica in an interview with Graham Fuller (1999).

The Time of Stereotypes

The so-called “freedom” of the Roma is vehemently demanded in “Time of the Gypsies” (1989) by a mad and stubborn protagonist right at the beginning of the film. The general feeling arises that the Roma are just not normal and submissive and do not want to integrate themselves into society.
The “direct connection to joy” of the Roma is also portrayed in “Blue Gipsy” (2005), as a manipulation tool using this “joie de vivre” to pick people’s pockets. See Youtube Video:

The shown scene gives the public the impression that one should not be misled by “happy Roma”. Music, dance and joy – the only positive features attributed to the Roma – are shown negatively by Kusturica in this context.

“Black Cat, White Cat” (1998) clearly shows that for Kusturica this “freedom” and “joy of life” means nothing but insolence and a primitive attitude towards life. Like in the scene in which a young man picks up his grandfather from the hospital alongside a marching band.

A popular theme in his work are Roma, who survive like insects. Despite this recurring image, Kusturica’s films are without a trace of the Roma genocide. We can see symbols for this in scenes such as the one from “Time of the Gypsies”, which shows a floating house.

The two old men from “Black Cat, White Cat”, (Spoiler alert!) who rise from death at the end of the movie are also marked by this symbolism. This subject of survival is proposing a question to the audience:
“Why don’t they just die?”. However, replacing the question mark at the end of this question with the desire to wipe out the Roma.

Satire as a cover for racism

Kusturica uses the art of filmmaking to live out his personal racist ideas safely kept under the cover of satire. Every detail has a meaning and there is symbolism behind every punch line.

Because we have no state of our own, no political representation, and few instances working to protect the rights of the Roma, Kusturica allows himself to denigrate and vilify the Roma in his films.

There is a hidden hatred against Roma manifesting behind his rhetoric and the symbolism of his films, downright Antigypsyism.

Kursturica’s work is generalizing. Negative characteristics and events – such as child trafficking, arranged marriages, forced marriages, begging, drugs, violence, theft, smuggling, corruption and gambling – are attributed to the Roma and made into their origin. Traditions and customs of the Roma on the other hand are mocked and exaggerated. The characters are not particularly attractive: we often see characters with golden teeth, hats and mustaches. Their clothes are cheesy and tasteless, their names are foreign and strange.

His main characters are often antagonists with human features. Even if they initially win the hearts of viewers with their “non-gypsy” features, eventually it’s always pointed out that the exception only confirms the rule.

It is striking that the “gypsies” in Kusturica’s films always live in isolation, in their own way, excluded from society. Contact with non-Roma is rare. If they do meet non-Roma, it is people who practice professions that are forbidden for the Roma in this made-up world: priests, mayors, doctors, nurses.

After all, if he had portrayed a Roma man integrated in society pursuing one of those professions, his image of a criminal, lazy and primitive people would not have been able to hold up cinematically.

 From Idol to Idiot

Kusturica meets Coppola  | Source: kustu.com

Emir Kusturica was a big admirer of Francis Ford Coppola, which evidently shows in his work. At a personal meeting with the filmmaker at the Cannes Film Festival on May 11, 1997, Kusturica and Coppola finally met. Only then Kusturica realized that Coppola had never heard about him and his films. This obviously hurt him deeply, as this quote shows:

“I do everything not to become like Coppola,”

he stated afterwards in an interview with the French journal L’Evénement du Jeudi (2000). This statement tells a lot about Kusturica. He always overestimates his fame. “I’m not saying that I’m a genius, but …” In any confrontation with the criticism, Kusturica is embarrassed and offended.

“He did not want to recognize me, I think. I was astonished that he had never heard about a single of my films “,

he says. Like this, even his former idol turns into an enemy because he does not receive the recognition and glory he attributes to himself.

“I’ve liked Coppola before. Today, Coppola does business. He has no time to be a director. He must be very unhappy. I’m recognized, which brings great advantages when you need to find funding for a new movie. I expose myself each minute of my life. I make the actor. I play music. Because I don’t want to be Coppola! With his fat belly, he couldn’t play rock.”,

he says in L’Evénement du Jeudi (2000).

Gypsy Whisperer

Kusturica’s work on Roma has received several awards. The work of a non-Roma who earned his money on the back of my people and abused the Roma for his own recognition and prestige. Regardless of his acquired wealth, it is painful and severe how he has built a successful career by defaming the Roma over time.

As the most popular international director for movies about Roma, he has laid the foundation for many of today’s prejudices. I am convinced that Kusturica’s films have significantly contributed to creating the negative image of our minority in the minds his viewers, and thus greatly increased xenophobia and Antigypsyism. Kusturica is a wanderer, just like the fictional fairytale-gypsies in his films.

“I am a man without a country, traveling between Paris and New York and Belgrade and Montenegro. My roots are in Herzegovina, but I don’t care about nationality. “,

he says in the interview with Graham Fuller. According to this logic, he should actually be empathetic towards his Gypsies, right?

Why does Emir Kusturica hate the Roma so much then? Maybe he has even answered this question himself:

“Because every middle-class motherfucker wants to have someone beneath him.”

Further artikels releated to Emir Kusturica:

You are here:Part 1 Intro: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies”

Part 2: Opinion on “Time of the Gypsies” (1989)
Part 3: Opinion on “Black cat, white cat”
Part 4: Opinion on “Blue Gipsy – All the invisible children”

The post Opinion | Romani Voices | Part 1 INTRO: Emir Kusturica and his “Gypsies “ by Laura Moldovan appeared first on GipsyTv & GipsyRadio.