Fuse

This brilliantly controlled debut feature opens with a jolt symbolic of the dangers buried beneath the surface of a small rustic village in Bosnia. Two years after the civil war has officially ended, Serbs and Muslims are trying to live and work together. A dryly humorous tone contrasted with a shrewd sense of reality, even in the tragic legacy of post-war Bosnia, balances this beautifully wrought political satire. Times are tough indeed, and everyone has to make his or her living in some sort of illegal way. It's an unflinchingly honest and darkly funny depiction of a poor, corrupt community struggling to hide its unlawful activities, unhappy alliances, amidst an attempt to establish some sort of democracy. Pjer Zalica combines techniques from 1960s East European comedies and his background in documentaries to generate a steady stream of sparks, built around a single, quasi-political event (Clinton is planning a visit). (official distributor synopsis)