Platicsco
Good story, Not enough for a whole film
Humbersi
The first must-see film of the year.
Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
mario_c
ZAVET is not for sure Emir Kusturica's masterpiece, as this excellent director has better movies like UNDERGROUND or BLACK CAT WHITE CAT, however it's a nice film and it certainly uses plenty of Kusturica's typical elements/ideas. It's a tale between fantasy and reality and it's a positive feature. The plot is always around a main topic: "a countryman grandfather asks to his grandson to go to the city sell their cow and get a wife, because he will soon die and leave him alone in the world". But next to this main topic many funny characters will appear, like a persistent pretender to an old teacher, a flying man came out from a circus, gypsy mad thieves and a pair of brothers that knock down everything…And with those funny characters, funny scenes will also appear, of course! It has the typical characters and scenarios Kusturica likes to use and also the type of humor that makes him a different and special director. The last 10 minutes are really intense, weird and funny at the same time, and are just the proof of that! Not being a masterpiece it's a nice film of a master… I score it 8/10.
sonoftrev
This film seems to be getting an awful lot of stick which is quite unfounded. Sure, all the usual Kusturican elements are present, but its these ideas that make his films so special. The colourful barrage of heady surrealism barrels along at an incredible pace but without detracting from the energy of the movie.The plot follows Tsane as he is sent to the big city, by his Grandfather, to sell the family's cow and return with a wife before Grandpa shuffles off this mortal coil. Of course, life is not that simple and in a sparkling series of ribald vignettes that defy the laws of physics, Kusturica gives the audience murder, prostitution, gangsters, castration and a whole raft of bizarre characters and situations.However, at the heart of the movie is a quest for love and affirmation against the difficulties posed by the chaos of the region. In a gloriously anarchic ending, a double wedding is conducted in the midst of a gun battle, with the band playing on and all under the baleful gaze of a gravity defying human cannonball.This is a fun movie and yes, maybe not all of Kusturica's ideas pay off, but we should all be thankful that he has the imagination, the verve and the bravery to experiment with these ideas in his films. I would take one average Kusturica movie over a thousand dull, turgid and pointless Hollywood blockbusters.
imdb-sergivs
After Life is a Miracle, I did not expect much. It's hard to believe that these films were made by the same man as Do You Remember Dolly Bell, for instance. Zavet is two hours of silly antics with no story. The wild and unbridled humor of Underground seems to have degenerated into pathetic buffoonery here. It appears that Kusturica has been going steadily downhill since he started making life-affirming comedies, beginning with Black Cat, White Cat, which I think was great, but already had some disturbing signs of dementia. I liked his early films so much, and this is why it's especially disappointing to see something like this. Let's hope his next one will be great.
edlund-5
This "movie" is more like a music video. Kusturica said in an interview from 2004 that when he is making movies, he feels like making music, and when he is making music, he feels like making movies. The best thing in "Promise me this" is the music, written by Stribor Kusturica.Kusturica said in the same interview, that for him the dialogues in the movies are like noise. "Promise me this" has very little "noise".I liked "Life is a miracle". It was also like music video for the first 30 minutes and at some points later, but it had a beautiful plot. "Promise me this" has no plot. I was awaiting this movie with big expectations, because I've read, that the script has been written by Ranko Bozic - one of my favourite scriptwriters, who participated also in "Life is a miracle". Ranko Bozic writes great dialogues, but for Kusturica they are "noise", and much to my regret, I saw only two dialogues, which I could identify as written by Ranko Bozic. The other part of the script was used by the director for making his chaotic music video for the music of his son Stribor.Gordan Mihic (the man who wrote the scripts for "Time of the gypsies" and "Black cat white cat") said in an interview, that Kusturica never follows the script. "Black cat white cat" was the only script, for which Kusturica said, that he will not touch it. According to Gordan Mihic, after all Kusturica comes back to the script, and if he doesn't, he doesn't make a good movie. And I think this is the case with "Promise me this". He should have followed the script of Ranko Bozic."Promise me this" is billed as a "comedy", but there are very few moments, which made me laugh. The comedic moments are in the same style as "Black cat white cat", but are not that funny at all. I think the difference comes from the fact, that "Black cat white cat" was written by Gordan Mihic.However, I know some people, who liked "Promise me this", they find it very positive movie.