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
