Emir Kusturica - Bife ‘Titanik’ (1980)

Film description from kustu.net:
Quote:
Titanic has almost nothing to do with the steamer of the same name. Based on a short story of Ivo Andrić, famous Yugoslav Nobel Prize, this film is set in Sarajevo. But the catastrophe is nevertheless coming. Often badly translated under the title of Buffet Titanic, it is in fact the Titanic Bar, the name of the bar of jewish Mento Papo, character physically and psychologically marked by its doubts and its defects : its establishment is hiding a prohibited back gaming room, he is rather easy on drinking, he does not cease quarreling with his concubine, he is scorned by the Jews of Sarajevo, etc. The story is set during the Second World War, and when the news of the war arrive in Bosnia, Mento Papo is not ready.

Concerning the style, we already find in this film the Emir Kusturica’s touch , like :
– some sequences where the action is simultaneously on the foreground and the background.
– A dice gambling game where the main character, already a poor man, looses all his money to the cheater fellows. He will even loose the last billet he had hidden in his sock. This scene will be recycled in Time of the gypsies.
– Some inside sequences filmed from the outside of the building, through a window show a strong Tarkovski influence.
– A lot of work on shadows, reflections, and lamps
-The themes, the claustrophobia generated by this glaucous inn, the yellow tinted atmosphere make of Titanic a direct precursor to Underground.