Love Affair

The Yugoslav heroine of Love Affair jounces and flounces down the streets of Belgrade, ogled by passers-by who admire both the clothing without and the body within. The oglers are only half justified. The body is beautiful--as the film demonstrates later when it bares almost every splendid millimeter for inspection. But the dresses are frumpy and styleless; the huge, block-heeled shoes look like Minnie Mouse's discards. As with much Eastern European couture, what appears hip at home may seem antique elsewhere, and the Yugoslav wardrobe in this case is matched by some equally square film fashions.

The movie begins with a sobersided lecture by a bearded sexologist whose recondite Kinseyisms are interspersed with pornographic slides. Eventually, the action leads into the story of Isabela (Eva Ras), a sensual-mouthed switchboard operator who begins an affair with a sad-eyed ratcatcher (Slobodan Aligrudic). As the affair progresses, time begins to dissolve. Suddenly it is the future: she is dead, drowned in a well, while police search for her lover. Back in the present, the graphic lovemaking of Isabela and her ratcatcher is punctuated by an illustrated lecture on sanitation. Once again, it is the future, as her nude corpse is wheeled into a hospital for an autopsy. Surrealistic film puns abound: a pair of buttocks turn into a cracked egg that, in turn, becomes the starting point for still another pedantic sex lecture.

Toying with time while juggling ribaldry and death, Director Dusan Makavejev made Love Affair the way an action painter attacks a canvas. As a result, there are many happy accidents and not a few disasters. The movie is at its Rabelaisian best when it sticks to salacity, at its worst when it attempts sagacity by commenting on life's meaninglessness. In the West the age of the Theater and the Cinema of the Absurd has rendered such Dada as dead as the dodo. But in countries with a history of repressive censorship, nonsense undoubtedly serves a therapeutic purpose.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.