Circles

2013
7.7| 1h40m| NR| en
Details

Circles (Serbian: Krugovi) is a Serbian movie based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who risked his life to protect a Muslim civilian during the war in Bosnia. During the war in Bosnia in 1993, a Serbian soldier pays for his life after protecting a Muslim civilian from being attacked by three other soldiers. 12 years later, the consequences of this act of heroism are still having their repercussions.

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Reviews

GamerTab That was an excellent one.
ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!
Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
Portia Hilton Blistering performances.
Alex Deleon KROGOVI (Сircles): Serbian, 2013 Director Srdan Golubović A Serbian film with Slovenian, Croatian and German production inputs.After a fast start in Trebinje, Montenegro, 1993, introducing the principal characters of the drama, the time moves forward twelve years to Halle, Germany, and then to Belgrade, Serbia, and the pace slows down considerably with lots of real time sequences and lingering shots on pensive faces as the movie lapses into a study of the consequences of an act of collective brutality -- simply put, an outrageous war crime, during the brutal Jugoslavian civil war, a dozen years later. On various people who have tried to put it behind them. At the opening, Marko, a Serbian soldier off duty intervenes in the brutal beating of an innocent Moslem civilian being savaged by some of his soldier mates as the townspeople look on passively.This humane act will have very complex and puzzling repercussions which will not be resolved until the very end when we finally see what happened to Marko as a result of his attempt to save an innocent person from a pointless murder by his mates. This very tense drama that was roundly applauded by the Hungarian (Miskolc) audience and followed by a lengthy Q and A session with the director on stage after the screening. The civil war that tore Jugoslavia apart at the beginning of the nineties is now 20 years behind us but in the region itself the repercussions are still much like an open woundCircles, aka Krugovi, is based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who was killed defending a Muslim civilian from other soldiers while he was off-duty. Most of the story takes place a decade after the end of Serbian-Bosnian conflict but the effects of the war keep reaching out like ripples on a pond when a heavy stone is thrown in. Expanding concentric circles of guilt that keep disturbing the otherwise smooth surface of the water -- the 'krugovi' of the title -- that affect among others a Serbian family that has started a new life in neutral Germany, but the past comes back to haunt them. A surgeon who was only a medical student at the beginning is faced with the dilemma of whether to operate and save the life of a new patient, or not to operate and let him die when he recognizes the patient as the killer of his best friend back in Trebinje years before. But the former killer taunts him by reminding him that he was of the bystanders who did nothing to prevent the killing on that fatal day. All of this is cunningly directed like an intertwined nest of mystery stories embedded in each other until the surprise revelation at the end. While the story is specifically Yugoslavian the morality involved is universal and the filming is so masterful that this movie will hold the attention of audiences anywhere. Can't wait to see more work by Srdan Golubović.
petarmatic All of us who are from the former Yugoslavia are stunned when a film like this comes out.My question is always was the war in the former Yugoslavia worth it? The answer is resounding NO! It was one of the most stupid wars since the dawn of mankind.As far as the film goes, it just is so excellent that it leaves me breathless. They do not make films about people any more, actually they rarely do. This one is must see! Gritty, that is how you can describe former Yugoslavia. And this film shows it well.For a Westerners it probably looks exotic. Actually it is. Full of PTSD and Paranoid psychosis, created by poverty and nationalistic struggle.If they ask me what they could do for these peoples to fight less I tell them create Germany on the territories of the former Yugoslavia. I know it is not an easy task, but that is the only solution.Trebinje kad me vidiš jebi me! I do not know village on this Earth which hurted me more. First in 1943 they destroyed my house in Dubljani, about 30km west of Trebinje, evicted all the Croats from there. Then, in 1991 they burned my house in Mlini near Dubrovnik, they also sent soldiers to bomb my hometown of Sarajevo.I wish it never existed, but I will never hurt anyone from there, I just am not that kind of person.
sevastokrator In a war-infested country, behind the lines, a soldier on leave interferes to save the life of an innocent man from another ethnic group, being beaten by his fellow soldiers. He ends up being beaten to death instead.20 years after the war, one finds himself thinking about who were the true war heroes. An utterly pointless act, to risk your own life in a havoc in which a human life is wasted in the blink of an eye, for someone you barely know, is something one can see only on screen. In reality, most of us are those who watch, who witness, but dare not interfere.One man did interfere, and lost his life, seemingly pointlessly. The only child of a widowed father, with a fiancée whose life would become a sad and tragic story of a drifter afterwards, and the gang of murderers sentenced to ridiculously short sentences. Was it worth it, are good deeds worth it in general? There's an ironic English proverb saying that no good deed goes unpunished. But the story tells that even a rock thrown in water makes circles that grow and spread. In this case, circles of compassion that go through space and time and inspire many. Circles that help us find inner courage to stand up to injustice, that help us find the compassion to restrain us in revenge upon the innocent.This film was inspired by a true story. The story of Srđan Aleksić, a Serbian soldier on leave who was beaten to death in 1993 by his fellow men, while trying to save Alen Glavović, an innocent Muslim civilian, who was being beaten before him. Out of the four rascals, only one expressed regret in the court. Ironically, he was the only one to meet death shortly, within a couple of months, shot on the front line, where all four were sentenced to. Srđan's father wrote in his son's obituary "He died fulfilling his human duty".The circles that the rock of Srđan's deed made are those which eventually made him the only war-hero respected and cared for on all the opposed sides. What strikes me most were Christ's words that "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends." Those circles keep showing us that such deeds of the greatest love are possible and were made by a man who had lived among us, and who never lived to see his family growing and his children being born, unlike us, the silent witnesses, who take so much pride in love we feel and share.The names are altered and the rest of the story is entirely fictional. Being a person from the region, there was little in the film for me not to be fully understood and grasped. Therefore, I am somewhat reluctant to recommend it to worldwide audience, fearing if its universal message would break through the local context it took place in. But I do. Here is an excellent, slow and heavy Serbian drama with little action, much dialogue and fine acting, telling us the aftermath of a well known story, and circles of compassion, forgiveness, courage and inner purification.R.I.P. Srđan Aleksić 1966 — 1993
Trentflix Circles, aka Krugovi, is based on the true story of a Serbian soldier who was killed defending a Muslim civilian from other soldiers while he was off-duty. The results of this event are fictional but that kernel of truth grounds this film in a firm realty. The majority of this film takes place a decade after the Serbian-Bonsian conflict is over but its effects are present throughout.What makes this film great and sets it apart from a straight-forward narrative is the way it skillfully withholds information and only reveals small details of what happened and the history that has ensued. This keeps the audiences rapt attention and makes it much more tense than it should be because we don't know how the characters are going to react because we don't fully know what happened. The characters don't go off on a lengthy moralistic speech or expository dialogue. The communication is much more realistic in that they don't say what they are thinking and they hide information from each other – much like real life. The cinematography is great, from the millennia old desert and old way of life to the inside of the BMW plant which looks futuristic; this is a film with skillful hands behind the camera. Really, this film should not be as great as it is, but the constant intrigue and slow unraveling of the mystery make this an entertaining and emotional ride. The actors too are compelling and well casted in their roles; this film would not work on any level without their excellent performances. The actor who plays the mobster-father (the IMDb credits are incomplete), even though his role is fairly small in comparison, should be the villain in every movie, he just exudes fury and hate. (He looks like an evil Michael Sheen – which is actually Andy Sirkis so maybe he looks like an evil Andy Sirkis?)From the title of this film, I assumed this would be about the circular nature of violence but in fact this can be taken two ways, it's more about the circular nature of kindness and good, and a more-accurate title would be "ripple" or the ripple-effects of a singular kind-act.

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