[At some point we are hoping to get up a review of the new, meatier, cut of Uros Stojanovic's wonderful Tears For Sale, which is screening at Fantasia as a part of the Serbian Sidebar. For the moment, however, let us all reconsider Todd's take on the film back at the 2008 edition of TIFF.]
Serbia may be an unlikely source for the next wave of European fantasy films but someone obviously neglected to tell this to the makers of Tears For Sale (aka Charleston and Vendetta). A visually stunning bit of work that incorporates and satirizes the region's tragic past without ever getting preachy or sentimental the film was years in the making, held up for a lengthy stint of post production to get everything looking just right. And does it ever. While there are a few bumps on the script end of things, director Uros Stojanovic may very well have the goods to best Jean Pierre Jeunet at his own game.
In an unnamed town in the remote Serb countryside every boy tall enough to hold a rifle has been sent off to join some war or another for generations resulting in a town populated with nothing but women and one feeble, bed ridden old man responsible for impregnating the lot of them and keeping the town alive. It's a town filled with more ghosts than people, a town where a pair of beautiful sisters make their living as professional mourners while longing for a more romantic future. Or, if not romance, at least lust.
Life suddenly gets a whole lot bigger and more complex for the pair when a forced amorous encounter with aforementioned old man does not go well, a situation that leaves the old man dead, the town entirely bereft of men, and the two sisters tied to stakes for burning. But wait, one promises! Let us go and we can get a new man! A better man! We'll find one, trap him and bring him back! We swear on our grandmother's soul.
Now, you really should be careful what you swear on, because now Grandma's back from the grave and none too happy about it, the girls given just a few days to go find a replacement man with the cost of failure being Grandma's eternal damnation. And when the girls find not one, but two men - one of them a human cannonball, the other a professional dancer, both of them traveling hucksters - the unthinkable happens and both fall in love. They have one extra man, sure, but neither is willing to give theirs up and grandma's time is running out ...
Tears for Sale is a remarkable film on a number of levels. On the business end it is by far the largest and most financially successful Serb film ever made. That alone makes it noteworthy. More important, though, it announces the arrival of a major new talent in Stojanovic. The film manages what seems like an impossible task: it balances the tragic history of its home nation with a sense of legitimate magic and wonder. In a lot of ways it feels like a Grimm's fairy tale come to life, a world where magic exists but is also accompanied by darkness, death, sex and more. It's a fantasy, sure, but a fantasy firmly rooted in reality, a fantasy from a land where getting food to eat may mean an unpleasant death in a town filled with more ghosts than living people. The visuals are stunning, playing like equal parts Jeunet and vintage Gilliam, and the cast very strong. the only major complaint that can be made is that with it's slender running time you're simply left wanting more and that's one hell of a good problem to have.
Serbia may be an unlikely source for the next wave of European fantasy films but someone obviously neglected to tell this to the makers of Tears For Sale (aka Charleston and Vendetta). A visually stunning bit of work that incorporates and satirizes the region's tragic past without ever getting preachy or sentimental the film was years in the making, held up for a lengthy stint of post production to get everything looking just right. And does it ever. While there are a few bumps on the script end of things, director Uros Stojanovic may very well have the goods to best Jean Pierre Jeunet at his own game.In an unnamed town in the remote Serb countryside every boy tall enough to hold a rifle has been sent off to join some war or another for generations resulting in a town populated with nothing but women and one feeble, bed ridden old man responsible for impregnating the lot of them and keeping the town alive. It's a town filled with more ghosts than people, a town where a pair of beautiful sisters make their living as professional mourners while longing for a more romantic future. Or, if not romance, at least lust.
Life suddenly gets a whole lot bigger and more complex for the pair when a forced amorous encounter with aforementioned old man does not go well, a situation that leaves the old man dead, the town entirely bereft of men, and the two sisters tied to stakes for burning. But wait, one promises! Let us go and we can get a new man! A better man! We'll find one, trap him and bring him back! We swear on our grandmother's soul.
Now, you really should be careful what you swear on, because now Grandma's back from the grave and none too happy about it, the girls given just a few days to go find a replacement man with the cost of failure being Grandma's eternal damnation. And when the girls find not one, but two men - one of them a human cannonball, the other a professional dancer, both of them traveling hucksters - the unthinkable happens and both fall in love. They have one extra man, sure, but neither is willing to give theirs up and grandma's time is running out ...
Tears for Sale is a remarkable film on a number of levels. On the business end it is by far the largest and most financially successful Serb film ever made. That alone makes it noteworthy. More important, though, it announces the arrival of a major new talent in Stojanovic. The film manages what seems like an impossible task: it balances the tragic history of its home nation with a sense of legitimate magic and wonder. In a lot of ways it feels like a Grimm's fairy tale come to life, a world where magic exists but is also accompanied by darkness, death, sex and more. It's a fantasy, sure, but a fantasy firmly rooted in reality, a fantasy from a land where getting food to eat may mean an unpleasant death in a town filled with more ghosts than living people. The visuals are stunning, playing like equal parts Jeunet and vintage Gilliam, and the cast very strong. the only major complaint that can be made is that with it's slender running time you're simply left wanting more and that's one hell of a good problem to have.
I saw this film last year and absolutely loved it. It feels very muchlike Jeunet meets Lysistrata - or Amelie with boobs and bombs. It is a visual feast filled with humour and some stunningly beautiful East European actresses. I have been on the look out for a DVD/BR release ever since - as yet unsuccessfully, but it is definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.
There is a DVD out in Serbia and Romania but there are no English subs on it. I hope this film does gangbusters in the festival circuit and gets picked up for a BluRay release ASAP.
This truly is a gorgeous film, and the two or three screenshots which are floating around don't do it justice (the trailer on YouTube does a slightly better job though). All comparisons to both Jeunet and Gilliam are wholly earned.
There is one sequence in the film where all of the women go to the villaeg bar and get VERY drunk. What happens next took my breath away and even got me shedding a tear or two (the first time I was crying in a cinema since seeing "Grace" at the same festival, one year earlier...).
It's a magical, beautiful, powerful scene, and one of the most poignant I've ever watched.
"new, meatier, cut" - Yes Please! I caught this at TIFF 08 and, like James, have been hunting for a dvd or blu since.
I'm damn eager to hear what this new cut is all about.
Well there is an R2 UK dvd listed for Sep 20 - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tears-For-Sale-DVD/dp/B003L150EQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1280994678&sr=8-1
and an R4 Australian one apparently just came out: http://www.ezydvd.com.au/item.zml/814261 - listed as 86 min (same as the TIFF screening - and probably the same as the DC ff version I watched last year) - but like Tears of the Black Tiger - this is a beautiful flick I'm more than willing to double/etc. dip on.
Received and viewed Australian R2/R4 dvd today. Barebones all the way (just chapter menu), but as beautiful as I remember nonetheless. I'll pass on the UK version though - unless it has some actual features.