The stories of Emir Kusturica match his films — crumble into familiar favorite shots: funny, touching, beautiful …
1. Cry and laugh. Jars of pickled tomatoes roll across the wooden basement floor; a baby stroller flies downhill, and you won’t catch it; the flag on the house, hung for Tito’s arrival, hangs upside down, the linen on the line is covered with street soot, and the banks of the scrawny river are covered with rubbish; a kiss given at age 13 between buses becomes an oath of allegiance. Touching, funny, touching again — wonderful.
2. Take care of each other. Even if dad drinks and year after year forgets to wish happy birthday, mom forces him to read, and teenage loneliness is realized too early to cope with it, with Emir Kusturica it is easy to believe in true love and a happy family. It seems like with none of today’s writers. “Love turns life for the better, misfortunes are not eternal” — read and sit blissful. It seems that even if life entirely consisted of quarrels, thieves, hospitals, landfills and broken-down roads, drunkards, loneliness, Kusturica would still — without gritting his teeth, but loudly and openly — would thank her. But she’s not the only one.
3. Notice the miracle. Kusturica writes simply. And the language of the stories is simple, and the plots and conflicts are obvious, familiar, recognizable, human, native. No action-packed detective story, no space wars, no compound sentences. I would say a natural world with natural dialogues and scenes. The magic is implicit in it. Life does not need miracles, it is a miracle in itself.
It seems that Kusturica will continue to remind us with surprise and delight: but we are alive. Very, you know, brings back to reality.
Translation from French by Maria Brusovani.
Azbuka, Azbuka-Atticus, 256 p., 2015.