Every Wednesday, we pay homage to a great cinema classic. To see or to see again.
Dad is on a business trip the Emir Kusturica
Deuxième film d’Emir Kusturica après Do you remember Dolly Bell? (Golden Lion for the first work at the Venice Film Festival in 1981), Dad is on a business trip won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1985. The young Yugoslav filmmaker won, four years later on the Croisette, the directing prize for The Time of the Gypsies then a second Palme d’Or for Underground in 1995. At that time, his country plunged into a bloody war against a backdrop of nationalist and ethno-religious demands, but at the time of Dad is on a business tripYugoslavia is emerging from the Titoist era (Marshal Tito, in power since 1945, died in 1980) and the communist regime has been liberalized. This is also what allows Kusturica’s film to take a critical look at Tito’s Yugoslavia.
Copyright Malavida
Sarajevo, in the 1950s, Mehmed, a married but fickle man, maintains an adulterous relationship with a young woman who will ultimately take refuge in the arms of her lover’s brother-in-law. To him, she reports mocking remarks that Mehmed made towards Karl Marx. Denounced by his brother-in-law, Mehmed is sent to a work camp in the mines, but to his young son Malik, the mother simply says that “dad is on business trips.”
Between tragedy and comedy
Between family drama and bittersweet chronicle, the film combines individual destinies and collective history. The events are seen from a child’s perspective with the naivety (more or less false) and the temptation to flee the reality that this age implies. If denunciation and propaganda are at the heart of a society where power interferes in the very privacy of beings, the tone adopted by Kusturica is not intended to be pamphleteering and takes a look imbued with humanity on the characters.
Furthermore, we find in Dad is on a business trip the motifs and themes of future works (family, water, trains, weddings, music…) that the filmmaker will deploy in a more spectacular and lyrical way. The influence of Fellini On the street is quite evident here, particularly in the mixture of tragedy and comedy, naturalism and poetry. As for the main performer, Miki Manojlović, he will tour four other times with Emir Kusturica while leading an international career.
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/2026/06/08/6a26aa778d39b584918549.jpg "\"From one world to another\" : Jérémie Renier films his crossing of the Arctic with Loury Lag, a journey in memory of Gaspard Ulliel")
