I've always had a fondness for watching adolescents and their view of the world as they mature. "Do You Remember Dolly Bell?" is almost a Truffaut picture of adolescence, rough and raw and completely realistic. Only this directorial debut by Bosnian director Emir Kusturica is not quite "The 400 Blows" - it has its own microcosmic view of a world that seems in ruins and yet optimism flourishes through one kid.
Set in 1963 Sarajevo (pre-Civil War), the world is seen through the eyes of 16-year-old Dino (Slavo Stimac) whose daily mantra is "Every day in every way I'm getting better and better." He recites this with his friends especially while dunking his head in water and trying to shift his eyes several times. They are about to form a band and there is one single solitary song they are commissioned to sing - "24 mila baci" (about the only song that ever plays on the soundtrack). Slobodan Aligrudic is Otac, the drunk and sickly father with Communist leanings who regularly speaks of Marxism and controls their tiny apartment not as a tyrant, but a tough demanding father who knows what's happening in every corner. He believes in the ideals of Marx but his son is prone to hypnotism and auto-suggestion, thinking it works on everyone including prostitutes. Ah, he's just a kid, what does he know. The father, though, implicitly sees that Dino has an intelligence that goes beyond his other sons, one of whom dictates what his father says in a notebook.
Dino has five brothers and they live with their parents in this small, cramped apartment with a bed facing their living room. Dino also has a fixation on a prostitute named Dolly Bell (Ljiljana Blagojevic), adopting the name of an actress, who is housed in Dino's attic. She is to be kept there until her oily pimp returns. Dino falls for Dolly yet something always threatens this sweet relationship (the pimp notwithstanding). Dino's world is coming apart as his dad is slowly dying. There is quite a moving scene where the whole family looks at the patriarch's X ray knowing the end is coming. Otac takes it in stride. And so does Dino.
"Do You Remember Dolly Bell?" is Kusturica's amazingly absorbing directorial debut and it curates Dino as this young novice who is smart and alert to his world, a Socialist world of diminishing impact. Roughly hewn as a semi-documentary, the lighting changes from a grainy, overcast unblinkingly raw look to a subtle use of shadows to rare bursts of color that goes beyond its documentary look (the color film of actress Dolly Bell, dressed in red, as seen by a young audience; Dino drenched from the rain as he listens to Dolly, the prostitute, having sex while a faint yellow lamp light or flashlight shines on him). Maybe this is all to illustrate that Dino feels this gray world might change but he knows it will be sometime before it happens, if at all. At least he finds solace in singing "24 mila baci."
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