Time of the Miracles

M. and I have seen a great Serbian movie tonight-The Time of the Miracles. MoMA have had Serbian movies by a famous director Goran Paskaljevic, in its movie theatre, for the whole month of January.
We actually wanted to see more, but ended up seeing just this one. At least, a really good one.
Paskaljevic, as usual, picked skilled Serbian actors for this story, deriving from a book by another famous Serbian artist-writer Borislav Pekic. It's happening right after the World War II, when the communism in Yugoslavia suffocates the remains of the previous Serbian culture and outbringing, when Serbs were religious and faithful. There's a lot of symbolism and depth in this movie, as well as humor and just plainly interesting moments and characters. One can see through the symbols that are used, and know who certain characters really represent in historical sense, but still not know what is going to happened at the end. And the end itself is not as surprising, as it is effective. It leaves the lingering thoughts in the viewer, which is usually a sign of a good art work. If you haven't seen it, you really should. It stays with you, and makes you think. Which is always good, right?
The setting itself is supposed to be a village in Serbia, but Serbia is not that rocky. I believe it was filmed in Montenegro.
As it does give you an image of Yugoslavia after WWII, it embellishes everything, the fanaticism especially. But I guess you already knew that.