Cine Outsider header
Left bar Home button Disc reviews button Film review button Articles button Blogs button Interviews button Right bar
news archive
Older news stories have been archived by year and month, most recent first. They can be accessed by clicking on the links below.
2024 2023 2022
2021 2020 2019
2018 2017 2016
2015 2014 2013
2012 2011 2010
2009 2008 2007
2006 2005 2004
 
Tears for Sale on DVD in September

4 August 2010

It's the 1920s in post-World War I Serbia and the remote village of Pokrp is facing a serious crisis. Many years of warfare have resulted in the decimation of the village's male population, leaving the womenfolk love-starved and desperately craving a man's touch, companionship and attentions. When beautiful, virginal, twenty-something sisters Ognjenka (Katarina Radivojevic) and Little Boginja's (Sonja Kolacaric) attempts at experiencing the pleasures of the flesh result in the unfortunate accidental death of the village's sole surviving male – the elderly and near catatonic Grandpa Bisa – they are condemned to death by the other women.

The sisters manage to gain a temporary reprieve by promising to set out on a quest to find and bring back to the village within three days one virile man. At stake if they fail are not only their own lives, but also the very soul of their departed grandmother, which has been summoned from beyond the grave by the village witch as collateral to ensure their return. Their search sees them fortuitously crossing paths with two travellers, a slick dance-hall dandy known as the Charleston King (Stefan Kapicic) and a circus performer calling himself the Man of Steel (Nenad Jezdic). Naturally falling for the men, Ognjenka and Boginja decide they want them for themselves, but mindful of the threat to their grandmother's soul they agree to fulfil their promise and deliver their newfound beaus to the women of Pokrp...

The winner of the Free Spirit Award at the Warsaw International Film Festival and a huge box office success in its domestic market (where it was the most watched movie in Serbian cinemas during the year of its release), this "post-modern, cheerful fairytale for adults" (Politika) with its "magical look that brings certain French blockbusters to mind" (B92) is "a remarkable film on a number of levels that manages what seems like an impossible task: balancing the tragic history of its home nation with a sense of legitimate magic and wonder" (Todd Brown, Twitch) and one that "succeeds in poking fun at various Serbian national myths and symbols with its strong, lusty, independent women, eager-to-fight men and sacrilegious shenanigans in a hearse and among tombstones." (Variety).

Boasting "stunning visuals" (Todd Brown, Twitch), "brilliant photography, grandiose sequences and costumes, opulent cinematography and computer generated imagery that stands up to anything sees in other great looking movies" (B92) and an emotive score by award winning Japanese composer Shigeru Umebayashi (Curse Of The Golden Flower; Fearless; House Of Flying Daggers), Tears For Sale (Carlston za Ognjenku) was described as "a fairytale filled with dark jokes, estrogen, sex and explosions" by Movie City News and by Blic as "an extraordinary moment for new Serbian film."

Tears for Sale will be released on UK DVD by Icon Home Entertainment on 20th September 2010 at the RRP of £17.99. No extras have been detailed as yet.