The Wounds (1998)

Once, there was a country where everybody loved communism, everybody loved president, and everybody cried when he died (including police, thieves and of course infants).

In meantime, a new leader emerged, he was not exactly loved by everybody, but was a master of manipulations and hence capable of staying in power for a long, long time. He ruled by going from a war to another war, by election frauds, by TV propaganda.

Two boys lived in such a country. They were witnesses of their homeland's downfall. They did not have idols, except a next-door gangster. And they became gangsters, too...

What will happen to these two guys? Do they have future at all? You will certainly know if you watch this masterpiece of black-humor and sarcasm...

10/10

Fmovies: This film was my first exposure to life in Serbia – to life on a battlefield – after society and its rules have deteriorated to dust. Right and wrong yield to anarchy and savagery. It reminded me of William Golding's Lord of the Flies. At the end of the day, under the right circumstances, base human behaviors creep out. Morality comes from our environment. When civilization standards fall, values are lost. Citizens will degrade their fellow citizens to improve their own security, doing whatever they have to do. In Wounds, the surviving behavior emerges in the celebrated lifestyle of a gangster.

Pinki's narration is straight from the gut. He's 20 something at the end, and thinks of himself as an old man. The way he and kraut do the things they do, you just know they could get away with it.

It's a well told, thoroughly enjoyable Tour d'anarchy. Gruesome but real. 8.5 / 10.0

One of those in UR face, intense, violent pieces that U won't soon forget...tells the story of three youths and how their lives are shaped by their war-torn surroundings...never had any idea that this movie was going to be so RAW...whoa...a cross between "Natural Born Killers" and "Scarface"...

The Wounds fmovies. Dark, bleak, hopeless, harsh, uncompromising, periodically injected with black humor, but overall quite powerful - Srdjan Dragojevic's follow-up to "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame," weaves a tragic coming of age story in Yugoslav capital Belgrade during the turbulent 90's with all the sharp cultural, social, political references and critique one could ask for. This film actually fits more along the lines of "Cabaret Balkan," except that "Rane" has this gangster twist to it. Among the supporting actors I noticed a lot of familiar faces such as Miki Manojlovic, Dragan Bjelogrlic, Branca Katic, Nikola Kojo, who you may be familiar with from films like "Underground," "Black Cat, White Cat," above mentioned "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame" and "Cabaret Balkan" and such. Definitely recommended if you are interested in Serbia/Yugoslavia or Serbian film making.

In this film you'll see the sort of things you see when you quick-empty a bottle of vodka and then go and start a civil war. And blow up a whole country and all that. Shocking cinema for the movie-goer, in-you-face history for the social scientist type, bad memories for those that lived through it. Kids growing up to be gangsters in the post-Yugoslav hood. Sanctions-busting crime and normal crime are their path of socialization in the new and uncharted world, where TV crime shows will give them some patterns to follow, but since they're not the faint of heart, they'll soon make their own rules.

It would be 10 out of 10 as a gangster movie, yes, but it's 10 out of 10 in many other genres as well. Cruelly satirical blends with insightfully revealing in the portrayal of the era. As our lead characters go out of control, they present you with the uncontrollable dynamics of post-Yugoslav reality, that were beyond the point of no return before most realized. There is the whole story of the former Yugoslavia in the interactions. And the film, typically for its hellishly dark style, even proposes its own very special cure that no UN-sponsored mediation training will ever teach as one to be followed, I'm sure.

Srdan Dragojevic does it again! After "We are not Angels" and "Pretty Villages, Pretty Flames" he wrote and directed another masterpiece. This is one of the best gangster movies I saw. What makes it even stronger is the fact that Beograd underworld really looked like that between 1992 and 1997. Someone who isn't familiar with the situation in Serbia during those years of sanctions might think that some things in the movie are exaggerated but they are not. This movie makes fun of everything. From former Yugoslavia to todays Serbia, from Tito to Milosevic and whole situation in Serbia during those years. Actors are great, especially Dusan Pekic (Pinki) and Milan Maric (Svaba). I hope that people across Europe and USA will get a chance to see this movie.