Premeditated Murder (1995) User Reviews

All true romances are sad

[Bored_Dragon · 8/10 · 21 October 2019]

Branka Katic is a young photographer who, in Belgrade, during the war with Croatia, writes a book about her grandmother, a member of the Belgrade aristocracy at the end of World War II. In parallel, the story follows her love for a wounded man determined to return to the front and her grandmother's tensions between a former lover and a primitive Partisan officer who could save her stepfather and smooth her the transition to communism. The film, rather plausibly and realistically, shows the situation in Belgrade in the early nineties, the echoes of the horrors of war that reached Belgrade, as well as Partisan "occupation" of Belgrade half a century earlier. The story is simple and everyday, so charged with emotions that I was unable to objectively grasp the technical aspects of the film. This is one of those movies where objective quality is not so important, that overwhelms you on a much deeper, human level, and if you are at least a little bit of a movie-weeper like me, it's guaranteed to leave you in tears.

8/10

one of the best Yugoslav films!

[Milena-3 · 10/10 · 29 June 1999]

"Premeditated murder" shows two love stories: one happening during the Second World War, and the other in 1992. The main characters are grandmother and her granddaughter.Both of the stories are sad and romantic... Simply beautiful! This film introduces us with some of the most important events in Yugoslav history. It's sad and funny at the same time, full of energy, humor, and the young actors and actresses made great roles and made themselves shining careers. The director Gorcin Stojanovic, who is in fact theater director, made a great film for all generations!!

Strong!

[chemilan · 10/10 · 15 July 2005]

If someone who never heard nothing about Serbian cinematography ( which is unlikely to happen with Kusturica, Dragojevic and Paskaljevic walking alive) saw 'Ubistvo s predumisljajem' he would probably shout:'What the hell!Is this one an Oscar winner?' This film has it all to be commercial enough and also to be different from all the commercial tendencies. It presented cleverly combined elements: a deeply moving love story within terrible connotations of the Bosnian war which made the love story equally horrible. The thing that preserved this movie from wider international success( although it has collected some relevant awards) is the fact that the same year it was eligible it wasn't selected as the national representative for The Academy Awards, but if it has been selected it would have reached greater accomplishment, thanks to its perfect story. Deeply moving!

Good

[Decko_koji_obecava · 29 July 2002]

Another offering from Ljubisa Samardzic's post-acting career workshop. This time he was at it as a producer, before his rather mediocre directorial attempts in "Nebeska udica" and "Natasa".

Here, he and director Gorcin Stojanovic took a novel by the late great Slobodan Selenic and made a decent movie out of it.

Two separate stories run concurrently through the film. First, in the 1990s Belgrade with young Jelena (Branka Katic) meeting a soldier Bogdan, a Serb form Croatia (Nebojsa Glogovac) who's in town recovering after being wounded at the frontlines in Croatia. And the other in late 1940s Belgrade, told through Jelena's grandmother's journal that she found years later. In it, her grandma of the same name (played by: Ana Sofrenovic) is trying to free her Chetnik sympathizer stepfather from jail while herself adjusting to new post-WW2 realities and being wooed by two men - stepfather's snobby son Jovan (Dragan Micanovic) and a powerful Partizan commander Krsman (Sergej Trifunovic).

After a poor start movie starts delivering and gets better with each passing scene. There were many insightful moments but also some melodramatic fluff which would've been better suited for a sappy TV drama.

In the end, one gets a feeling "Ubistvo s predumisljajem" turned out OK despite the director rather than because of him. This movie's quality is in the great Slobodan Selenic story, which proved too good to be messed up by anyone and is alone worth the price of admission.