FINE DEAD GIRLS

Fine and dark indeed is Croatia's official submission to the 2002 Academy Awards, an acid-bath tragicomedy that opens with a beautiful young woman leading police to a sickly old lady in a wheelchair and, without proof, stating that the invalid has stolen her child. One officer agrees to hear out the accuser's farfetched tale, dating back several years and taking place in a Zagreb apartment complex, in the territory that was once Yugoslavia. Blaz, the landlord, seems to be a good guy, or is at least patient enough to endure his shrewish, busybody wife Olga. Other residents include Daniel, their adult (but not necessarily mature) son; Dr. Peric, the area abortionist running his clinic from home; an aloof old gentleman whose wife hasn't been seen in ages and whose place is starting to stink of putrefaction; a brute of a husband whose beatings of his spouse are infamous throughout the neighborhood; and a no-nonsense prostitute accustomed to fulfilling odd requests. Can any tenant go too far? Sure, when Marija and Iva move in. The two roommates are lesbian lovers – “sportswomen” in street parlance and while they keep to themselves, both the girls' families and Daniel are incensed by this challenge to traditional values. Something must be done, and as tensions and intolerances mount the building becomes as Balkanized, fractious and dangerous as the breakaway nation outside. (In Croatian with English subtitles)