Music for Weddings and Funerals

Ummi Straume is a Norwegian movie director.
In 2002 she made a movie called “Music for weddings and funerals”, starring Goran Bregovic.

Here’s some official reviews:

Music for Weddings and Funerals stars Lena Endre as the famous author Sara, who is living in her architect ex-husband’s sleek mansion in the country trying to overcome the death of her son. Sara decides on a little shock treatment to overcome her recent loss. On an impulse she rents out the basement to a charming but unpredictable Serbian musician and refugee Bogdan, played by Goran Bregovic. Within days of his arrival, her ex-husband is found shot, his pregnant mistress surfaces, Sara’s basement is home to a full balalaika orchestra and Bogdan himself is suddenly far, far more than just a tenant. Part black comedy, part sophisticated allegory, Music for Weddings and Funerals is a moving tale of loss and reconciliation. Dark, vivid and utterly irrepressible, it is as vibrant and full of humanity as Europe itself.

What is impressive for me in the movie is the clash between civilizations. On one side is the cold, nordic one – everything is precise, lines are straight, music is solemn. On the other side – the southeast european one, represented by Goran Bregovic (Bogdan) and his orchestra*.
I think that the collision between those two worlds is best shown in the desire of Bogdan to have a door in the basement. One could remember “Underground” at this point.
Another such a clash is the scene at the graveyard, where the Bulgarians are singing a beautiful song (one can only listen to the performance of Ludmila Radkova and stay quiet for the rest of the day, as her voice is simply not human, but divine)

The movie can be obtained (unfortunately only in original, Norwegian, with some English, or in Polish) from ebay – that’s where I got it from.

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* – where my favorite Ludmila Radkova and Daniela Radkova are singing, together with Lidia Dakova (the latter one was singing with Snezhana Borisova in an earlier version of the orchestra, you can listen and watch their performance at YouTube)

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