Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
| Pretty Village, Pretty Flame | |
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DVD cover
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| Directed by | Srđan Dragojević |
| Produced by |
Dragan Bjelogrlić Goran Bjelogrlić Milko Josifov Nikola Kojo |
| Written by |
Vanja Bulić Srđan Dragojević Biljana Maksić Nikola Pejaković |
| Starring |
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| Music by |
Aleksandar Habić Laza Ristovski |
| Cinematography | Dušan Joksimović |
| Edited by | Petar Marković |
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Running time
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115 minutes |
| Country | Yugoslavia |
| Language | Serbo-Croatian English |
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (Serbian: Лепа села лепо горе (Lepa sela lepo gore), literally "Pretty villages burn pretty") is a 1996 Serbian film directed by Srđan Dragojević with a screenplay based on an article written by Vanja Bulić.
Set during the Bosnian War, the film tells the story of Milan, part of a small group of Serb soldiers trapped in a tunnel by a Bosniak force. Through flashbacks, the lives of the trapped soldiers in pre-war Yugoslavia are shown, particularly Milan and his Bosniak best friend Halil becoming enemies after having to pick opposing sides in the conflict.
It is considered a modern classic of Serbian cinema. Almost 800,000 people went to see the film in cinemas across Serbia, which equated to approximately 8% of the country's total population. The film was selected as the Serbian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 69th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
The plot was inspired by real-life events that took place in the opening stages of the Bosnian War, with the film's screenplay being based on an article written by Vanja Bulić for Duga magazine about the actual event. Following the success of the movie, Bulić wrote a novel named Tunel that's essentially an expanded version of his magazine article.
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame features a non-linear plot line, and the scenes change between time periods from 1971 to 1999 which mostly cut back and forth in no particular order. The main time periods include the "present" with a hospitalized Milan, with flashbacks to both his childhood and his early adulthood in the 1980s until the war begins, and subsequent service as a soldier where he is trapped in the tunnel.
The film opens with a faux newsreel, showing the opening of the Tunnel of Brotherhood and Unity by visiting President Josip Broz Tito and local dignitary Džemal Bijedić on 27 June 1971. During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, President Tito accidentally cuts his thumb with the scissors.
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