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Love Affair, or the Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator

Ljubavni slucaj ili tragedija sluzbenice PTT

Yugoslavia

1967

68 Min
Black and White
1.66:1
Serbo-Croatian
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DIR Dušan Makavejev

PROD Aleksander Krstic

SCR Dušan Makavejev

DP Aleksandar Petkovic

CAST Eva Ras, Slobodan Aligrudić, Ružica Sokić, Miodrag Andrić, Dr. Alexsandar Kostic, Dr. Zivojin Aleksic

ED Katarina Stojanović

MUSIC Dušan Aleksić

Cannes (Semaine de la critique), New York

Synopsis

In outline, this is the story of a tragic romance between a young telephonist (Eva Ras) and a middle-aged rodent sanitation specialist (Slobodan Aligrudic) in Belgrade. Yet in Makavejev’s manic hands, this second feature becomes an endlessly surprising, time-shifting exploration of love and freedom. Featuring interludes of interviews with a medical sexologist and a criminologist, as well as some of the most elegant dramatic filmmaking of the director’s career, Love Affair, based on a true incident, further demonstrated Makavejev’s adeptness at mixing and matching genres, and his odd, sophisticated humanism. —The Criterion Collection

Director

Original

Dušan Makavejev

Dusan Makavejev, the most prominent director in new Yugoslav cinema is internationally recognized for his passionate, daring films that blend fiction with reality, and drama with humor. Many of these films contain experimental elements and were considered controversial for their eroticism and sharp criticism of Eastern European politics. Makavejev began making short films during the ‘50s just after he studied psychology at Belgrade University; he then went on to become active in several film societies and festivals while studying direction at the Academy for Radio, Television, and Film. He continued making shorts and documentaries for both Zagreb and Avala studios until the early ’60s. His interest in documentaries can still be see in his later fictional features. Makavejev’s first three features — Man Is Not a Bird (1966), Love Affair (1967), and Innocence Unprotected (1968) — won him international acclaim. In 1971, his fictionalized chronicle of psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, WR: Mysteries… read more

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Trickstian Shantih

14May12

Great film. It shows us again that communism was an ideology against human being. I was wondering what would Žižek say about this one. That communism was an arty and beautiful collectivistic Shangri-La? This Real Utopia is the Real Dystopia. So, give me a break 'Elvis', you better go hurry and run some after Hitchcock birds.

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Stu Witmer

16Dec10

Lost interest in this quirky little trifle about halfway through but kept with it because it is only 68 minutes long. On the other hand, this could be a metaphorical masterpiece of a creative genius. If so, then it is way over my head. At least there was no 60’s YugoPop in it.

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W184

The Auteurs Daily: Dušan Makavejev: Free Radical

By David Hudson on October 13, 2009

"By far the biggest brat to sneak his way through Eastern Bloc culture during the New Wave era, Yugoslav bomb-thrower Dušan Makavejev wasn

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