This is one of my most favourite movies. I don't know if I can say it was the best movie I ever saw. It's amazing to see how talented these amateur actors are and how beautiful the mis en scene is. I always thought about Time of the Gypsies as a kind of answer to the Latin American Magic Realism. Kusturica seems to know which subject requires which specific aesthetic style.
The Gypsies in Yugoslavia live in their traditional world as they live in the bizarre modernity of European reality. The clash of these two worlds is what so many so called European auteur directors thematized since the 1960's. Kusturica seems to be very conscious of these art cinema tradition, but he knows also which people he portraits. The East European Gypsies are in a very essential way still nomads, constantly shifting between different realities:the world of dreams, their own traditions, their myths, rituals and beliefs and the hybrid spaces of European criminality. Kusturica portrays these Gypsy worlds with a story that is both modern but also almost like a fairy tale. It is this very mixture that makes this movie brilliant and a must see.
The Gypsies in Yugoslavia live in their traditional world as they live in the bizarre modernity of European reality. The clash of these two worlds is what so many so called European auteur directors thematized since the 1960's. Kusturica seems to be very conscious of these art cinema tradition, but he knows also which people he portraits. The East European Gypsies are in a very essential way still nomads, constantly shifting between different realities:the world of dreams, their own traditions, their myths, rituals and beliefs and the hybrid spaces of European criminality. Kusturica portrays these Gypsy worlds with a story that is both modern but also almost like a fairy tale. It is this very mixture that makes this movie brilliant and a must see.