Who's That Singing Over There

''Who's Singin' Over There?'' ( sh, Ko to tamo peva) is a 1980 Yugoslav film written by Dušan Kovačević and directed by Slobodan Šijan. It is a dark comedy and features an ensemble cast. The film tells a story about a group of passengers traveling by bus to Belgrade in 1941, during the last days of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, just before the Axis occupation of Yugoslavia.

The film was screened in the ''Un Certain Regard'' section at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. In 1996, the Yugoslav Board of the Academy of Film Art and Science (AFUN) voted this movie the best Serbian movie made in the 1947–1995 period.

Plot

On Saturday, 5 April 1941, one day before the Axis invasion of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, a colourful group of random passengers on a country road deep in the heart of Serbia board a dilapidated bus, headed for the capital Belgrade. The group includes two Gypsy musicians, a World War I veteran, a Germanophile, a budding singer, a sickly looking man, and a hunter with a shotgun. The bus is owned by Krstić Sr., and driven by his impressionable and dim-witted son Miško.

Along the way, they are joined by a priest and a pair of young newlyweds who are on their way to the seaside for their honeymoon, and are faced with numerous difficulties: an army roadblock forcing a detour, a farmer ploughing the road which, he claims, stretches over his land, a flat tire, a funeral, two feuding families, a shaky bridge, Krstić Jr.'s recruitment into the army, and a lost wallet. All these slow the bus down and expose rifts among the travelers.

During the early morning of Sunday, 6 April, amid rumours of war, they finally reach Belgrade only to be caught in the middle of the Luftwaffe raid (Operation Punishment). The only apparent surviving passengers are the two Gypsy musicians who sing the film's theme song before the end.

Cast

*Pavle Vuisić as The Bus Conductor
*Dragan Nikolić as The Singer
*Danilo Stojković as Brka
*Aleksandar Berček as Miško Krstić
*Neda Arnerić as The Bride
* Mića Tomić as Aleksa Simić
*Taško Načić as The Hunter
*Boro Stjepanović as The Bald Guy
*Slavko Štimac as The Groom
*Miodrag Kostić as Musician 1
* Nenad Kostić as Musician 2
*Bora Todorović as The Mourner
*Slobodan Aligrudić as Lieutenant
*Petar Lupa as The Priest
* Stanojlo Milinković as The Plowman
*Ljubomir Ćipranić as Corporal Rajković
*Milovan Tasić as The Plowman's Son (uncredited)

Production

Centar Film, the state-owned production house, wanted to make Dušan Kovačević's script into a movie since 1978.

Reportedly, Goran Paskaljević was their first choice to direct the movie. He was supposed to shoot the Kovačević script as a contemporary-themed 50-minute TV movie whose story takes place in the late 1970s Yugoslavia on a public transport bus with the central character—an old man (played by Mija Aleksić)—headed to pay a visit to his son who's away serving his mandatory Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) service. However, Paskaljević decided to leave the project and shoot the feature film ''Zemaljski dani teku'' instead.

The job then went to 33-year-old Slobodan Šijan who had never shot a feature film up to that point.SLOBODAN ŠIJAN – Reditelj komedija: Još sam živ i snimam, ''Popboks'', April 30, 2009
/ref> Šijan described his experience:
: When I did my first film I was slightly scared, was it actually going to be funny? Because comedy is straightforward, there is no fooling around with it, if people don't laugh it's a bust.

The movie was made on a budget of US$130,000 with 21 shooting days. The filming began on 3 April 1980. It was shot almost entirely in Deliblatska Peščara.

The bus was chosen by the film's production designer Veljko Despotović based on the description provided by Šijan. It was rented from Jadran Film and painted red for the film. The same vehicle had appeared in earlier Yugoslav films such as ''Occupation in 26 Pictures'' (1978) and ''See You in the Next War'' (1980). For ''Occupation in 26 Pictures'', the bus had been fitted with a removable roof used to provide natural lighting. It was, however, barely in driving condition, and for interior shots the bus was mostly pushed or towed so as not to strain the engine. The smoke and the presence of live pigs in the cramped interior space made the filming conditions very difficult for the cast and the crew.

The final bombing scene was originally meant to include wild animals from the bombed Belgrade Zoo roaming through the city's downtown, which indeed happened during actual 6 April 1941 Luftwaffe air-raids; in fact, an old newspaper article documenting this bizarre occurrence served as inspiration for the author Dušan Kovačević to include it in the film. However, at the time of movie's filming in 1980, Tito died, which resulted in the extended mourning period that effectively canceled all entertainment activities in the country - including the Italian circus tour that was meant to provide the animals for the scene. Since working with untrained zoo animals was deemed too dangerous, the film-makers reluctantly had to abandon the idea at the time. However, the idea was used in the opening scene of ''Underground'' (1995), some 15 years later.

In 2004 the film was turned into a ballet by the National Theatre in Belgrade. The music is again by Vojislav Kostić and the choreography is made by Staša Zurovac.

Reception and reaction

The movie became an instant classic all over SFR Yugoslavia immediately upon its release. To this day, it endures as one of the most quotable movies ever to come out of the Balkans. Different scenes and dialogues are almost a part of general knowledge, with many entering public vernacular.

The film earned the special jury award at the 1981 Montréal World Film Festival.

In 1996, members of the Yugoslavian Board of the Academy of Film Art and Science (AFUN) voted this movie as the best Serbian movie made in the 1947–1995 period.SERBIAN FILM PRODUCTION - FEATURE FILMS

See also

*List of Yugoslav films

References

External links

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"Ko to tamo peva" u slikamaeast European Film BulletinShaviro

{{Slobodan Šijan

1980 films
1980s black comedy films
1980s road movies
Yugoslav World War II films
Serbo-Croatian-language films
1980s Serbian-language films
Films directed by Slobodan Šijan
Serbian black comedy films
Yugoslav black comedy films
Films set in 1941
Films set in Serbia
Films set in Yugoslavia
Buses in fiction
Films with screenplays by Dušan Kovačević
1980 comedy films
Films shot in Serbia