So, today I had to go to Exeter for the afternoon, for an information day I was helping out at. As I live the other end of the county, this involved catching a bus two hours before the event started. I didn't think this would be a problem, and cheerfully walked to the bus stop and waited for the bus to come.
It didn't come. I waited a while.
Eventually, I went back home - "The bus didn't arrive!" I snapped at my dad. "And the next one isn't for two hours!" Country life, my friends. Sigh. This is actually a lot better than some of my friends living in villages, who only get two buses a day to the nearest town. Anyway, I phoned the event organiser, who assured me that it would be OK for me to arrive later than planned (since I was mostly needed for the later events anyway), so that was fine. However, what was weird was the fact that the number of the bus route - the route which has gone between my town and Exeter since before I moved here aged 11 - wasn't on the list of bus routes by the bus stop. When I looked up that timetable online, it was listed as running at the times I thought, but the name of the bus stop in my town was wrong. Also, when I'd been standing at the bus stop earlier I'd noticed another route, almost identical to the one I usually took but a few minutes earlier each time. It seemed too weird for there to be two identical routes, and I got the horrible feeling that my usual bus had been redirected or something, and there was another bus to replace it (with a timetable which, by the way, I couldn't find online!).
Anyway, I walked to the tourist office, got a full bus timetable for the whole county, and looked up my usual bus route. It wasn't there - the service had been cancelled (and of course no one bothered to mention anything, and most people didn't even know). However, we did indeed have the bus route I referred to earlier, which for some bizarre reason had at least 5 different routes all grouped under the same number. When I eventually worked out that yes, there was a bus going from my town to Exeter, it was a relief, but I was also full of rage because it had been such a long and stupid chase to find out what the hell had happened to my bus.
Two hours after I'd initially gone to the bus stop, I walked back and caught the next bus. It was a long, unpleasant two hours journey across the county, traversing winding country lanes in an old, stuffy, rickety bus - the only good part was that I sat on the upper deck and got to see everything from above. Other than that, it was a long and shitty journey and the amount of time I spent running all over town to work out what was going on was not worth it. About the only good thing that happened was that after the event was over I had time to go to the local Boston's for a cup of tea (I love Boston's tea - it's loose leaf, just the way I like it!). Other than that - gah.
Thursday 26 March 2015
Sunday 15 March 2015
Review | Ko To Tamo Peva
Down a dirt track that winds across the rolling green fields, under a chalky blue-and-grey sky, a dilapidated pink van rattles along, accompanied by a jaunty tune. Inside, several mismatched passengers are eager to reach Belgrade, even if it means travelling in a falling-down bus driven by a reckless young man who is perfectly willing to drive blindfolded to prove that he's as good a driver as he claims.
It's April 1941, and as the opening frames say, the scene is "somewhere in Serbia". The fact that the country is facing imminent German invasion is obvious, as complaints about the army appear in one of the very first scenes, where a motley group of travellers stand by the side of a field track waiting for the bus. Ko to tamo peva (released in English as Who's Singin' Over There?) is undeniably a WWII film - but it's also hysterically funny. The long, rickety, trying journey from rural Serbia to Belgrade is marked by many obstacles, including a broken bridge, an obstinate farmer who has ploughed over the road and insists on a payment of 100 dinars before he lets them pass, a funeral, and the driver's recruitment into the army.
The disastrous and chaotic journey is all in the name of comedy: the owner of the bus, Krstić, refuses to let a passenger on because "the stop is 200m downhill", despite the fact that they're driving in a wasteland with no sign of life anywhere; during a funeral the young married couple sneak off to the woods, and end up being spied on by the rest of the passengers, who only realise when a consumptive passenger's hacking cough becomes too loud to hide; the pompous Germanophile falls off a bridge and seemingly drowns, only to reappear some time (and several kilometres) later, and having stripped off his sodden overclothes, ends up chasing a hare across a field in his underwear.
This film is an absurd comedy in the best possible way, bringing together a very disparate group of people and seeing just how ridiculous their situation can get, in a sort of demented roadtrip movie. While these people are in a Europe that is being swallowed up by Nazi forces - indeed, the Nazi invasion of Belgrade ends the film - most of their concerns are far more pedestrian. The moustachioed singer wants to get to Belgrade in time for his audition, and later on makes it his mission to seduce the young bride away from her incompetent husband. The bride, for her part, dreams of going to the sea, although her husband seems far less enthusiastic. The old veteran, who considers his war history to be a source of great pride, wants to see his son, who has joined the Artillery, again. The oncoming war is a shadow over the whole film, but it is not the be all and end all; these people don't live in constant fear, and mostly just want to get on with their lives. It's a refreshing change from the sort of unrelenting grimness that permeates many American WWII films, and a reminder that just because something is set during a war, doesn't mean the war is all there is.
Ko to tamo peva is considered a classic in the ex-Yugoslavia, and one of the most quotable films to come out of the Balkans. It's not an undeserved title; this film is utterly hilarious, with many brilliant lines as well as physical comedy. Eastern European cinema is frequently associated in the West with depressing realist films that make quite sure to hammer home how much of a forsaken slump life is east of the former Iron Curtain. It's hard to get a balanced picture of Eastern European cinema when most of what gets released in the West tries to be relevant - which of course means bleak and miserable. But this 1980 Yugoslav film is brilliantly, absurdly funny, and an excellent antidote to the stereotype of Eastern European cinema in the West.
If you want to watch Ko to tamo peva, you can do so here, with English subtitles:
Ko to tamo peva
It's April 1941, and as the opening frames say, the scene is "somewhere in Serbia". The fact that the country is facing imminent German invasion is obvious, as complaints about the army appear in one of the very first scenes, where a motley group of travellers stand by the side of a field track waiting for the bus. Ko to tamo peva (released in English as Who's Singin' Over There?) is undeniably a WWII film - but it's also hysterically funny. The long, rickety, trying journey from rural Serbia to Belgrade is marked by many obstacles, including a broken bridge, an obstinate farmer who has ploughed over the road and insists on a payment of 100 dinars before he lets them pass, a funeral, and the driver's recruitment into the army.
The disastrous and chaotic journey is all in the name of comedy: the owner of the bus, Krstić, refuses to let a passenger on because "the stop is 200m downhill", despite the fact that they're driving in a wasteland with no sign of life anywhere; during a funeral the young married couple sneak off to the woods, and end up being spied on by the rest of the passengers, who only realise when a consumptive passenger's hacking cough becomes too loud to hide; the pompous Germanophile falls off a bridge and seemingly drowns, only to reappear some time (and several kilometres) later, and having stripped off his sodden overclothes, ends up chasing a hare across a field in his underwear.
This film is an absurd comedy in the best possible way, bringing together a very disparate group of people and seeing just how ridiculous their situation can get, in a sort of demented roadtrip movie. While these people are in a Europe that is being swallowed up by Nazi forces - indeed, the Nazi invasion of Belgrade ends the film - most of their concerns are far more pedestrian. The moustachioed singer wants to get to Belgrade in time for his audition, and later on makes it his mission to seduce the young bride away from her incompetent husband. The bride, for her part, dreams of going to the sea, although her husband seems far less enthusiastic. The old veteran, who considers his war history to be a source of great pride, wants to see his son, who has joined the Artillery, again. The oncoming war is a shadow over the whole film, but it is not the be all and end all; these people don't live in constant fear, and mostly just want to get on with their lives. It's a refreshing change from the sort of unrelenting grimness that permeates many American WWII films, and a reminder that just because something is set during a war, doesn't mean the war is all there is.
Ko to tamo peva is considered a classic in the ex-Yugoslavia, and one of the most quotable films to come out of the Balkans. It's not an undeserved title; this film is utterly hilarious, with many brilliant lines as well as physical comedy. Eastern European cinema is frequently associated in the West with depressing realist films that make quite sure to hammer home how much of a forsaken slump life is east of the former Iron Curtain. It's hard to get a balanced picture of Eastern European cinema when most of what gets released in the West tries to be relevant - which of course means bleak and miserable. But this 1980 Yugoslav film is brilliantly, absurdly funny, and an excellent antidote to the stereotype of Eastern European cinema in the West.
If you want to watch Ko to tamo peva, you can do so here, with English subtitles:
Ko to tamo peva
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