Do You Remember Dolly Bell?
Director: Emir Kusturica
Year Released: 1981
Rating: 2.0
Early Kusturica more or less addresses most of the major topics of his oeuvre: his fascination with music, his obsession with politics, his droll sense of humor, his penchant for coming-of-age narratives, his interest in strong father-figures. But unlike his later, much better movies, this one more or less coasts by wistfully, lacking polish - essentially, it's a test run for his 1985 feature When Father Was Away on Business. The young man here 'grows up' via a sequence of rather extraordinary events: he starts smoking, he gets a gig in a band, his father dies of lung cancer, he falls in love with a prostitute and has to fight her pimp to defend her honor - Kusturica never makes clear what happens to "Dolly Bell" after she deflowers our young hero, and I suppose we're not supposed to be concerned that, you know, she's a slave and a human punching bag (did I mention that there are a real lack of female coming-of-age movies?).
