PROFILE 5

I SUFFER SO MUCH MORE WHEN I AM WORKING BECAUSE I AM NOT AS TALENTED AS I BELIEVE I AM EMIR KUSTURICA

Clash for a messy rendition of Police on My Back. “I liked [late Clash frontman] Joe Strummer be- cause he was against mainstream politicians and hypocrisy. He called our music ‘crazy Greek Jewish wedding music of the past and future’, which is still true,” says Kusturica. Part cultural Alamo, part Plato’s Republic, “People leave our concerts feeling incredibly Kustendorf has all that the civilised world con- Eclectic line-up from here, there and everywhere enthusiastic about life, at least for an hour. This tains: art, agriculture, internet, shops, debate. happened in Australia when we played a big Cats, dogs, geese … animals figure heavily in WOMADelaide serves up one of the most Godfrey Reggio film Koyaanisqatsi in an aural opera hall [the Sydney Opera House in 2008]. Kusturica’s cinematic oeuvre, providing sight eclectic line-ups on the Australian music and cinematic feast, while Argentina’s Friends we hadn’t seen for a long time were very gags, reinforcing the animalistic nature of hu- calendar and this year’s roster is no different. Orquesta Tipica Fernandez Fierro delivers its proud. Australians who had seen Black Cat, mans but also highlighting characteristics such There is a wealth of riches over the four days vibrant and confronting take on the tango White Cat were very enthusiastic. as instinct and empathy, which the filmmaker across all manner of genres and from all points tradition. Ska also gets a guernsey in the form “Our music has patterns that create a Dionys- feels we have lost. Kusturica films such as When of the compass. of English veterans the Specials and if ian atmosphere, which is as it has been since an- Father was Away on Business (1985), Under- Among the main drawcards is Brazilian psychedelic Turkish rock ’n’ roll is your thing, cient times. Last night you saw a civilised version ground (1995) and Time of the Gypsies (1998) are superstar Bebel Gilberto, who brings her check out BaBa ZuLa. but usually the barrier is broken and we reach crammed with cameos by inquisitive pigs, levi- seductive bossa nova groove to the festival on Australia’s contribution this year is stronger catharsis together,” he says of a band that is oc- tating fish, singing dogs and, always, a gaggle of March 11. Spreading the love across three days and broader than before, ranging from the casionally more akin to the Banana Splits than snowy white geese. is the Hot 8 Brass Band, a New Orleans folkie/roots strains of the Waifs, William ancient Greece. Onstage, out of the main spot- “Geeses [sic] are camarillas [courtiers] in my institution that melds the traditions of the Crighton and Aaron Thomas through to the light, he often looks as if he’s directing. movies. They are spiteful and like to bite but city’s marching bands with elements of funk, strident hip hop of L-Fresh the Lion and AB “Our performance actually consists of many they have their dignity. A gander never cheats hip hop and R & B. Powerful voices, not least Original. From home there’s also Montaigne, small movies,” he nods. “I am convinced that on his wife.” on the issue of women’s rights, can be heard Archie Roach, 30/70, DD Dumbo, Dope music and cinema have the same structure.” Other familiar tropes include brass bands, in the delightful African voices of Mali’s Lemon, Electric Fields, Gawurra, Jesse Interview over, he invites me to that evening’s chaotic crowd scenes, boozy wedding and fu- Oumou Sangare and Inna Modja. Davidson, Kelly Menhennett, Mane, Nattali friends-only screening of On the Milky Road, neral parties and splashes of magic realism; he is The Philip Glass Ensemble brings to life the Rize, Tangents and Uncle Jack Charles. which is being held in the small underground particularly fond of sending his main characters composer’s soundtrack to the 1982 classic Iain Shedden Stanley Kubrick Theatre adjoining his house. floating through the air. With their carnival- After several false starts, we launch into a fairy- esque casts, riotous soundtracks and brutal tale cum love story between a Serbian milkman takes on human nature and war, his films often Berlin, buying albums by jazz-fusion group “Thanks to Black Cat, White Cat we were wel- (played by Kusturica) and a beautiful Italian- recall the oeuvre of Federico Fellini, the Italian Weather Report and selling them on the black come all over the world. We would play some- Serb fugitive (Bellucci) during the Bosnian con- director whom Kusturica — a former professor market in communist-ruled Czechoslovakia where once and they would call us and ask us to flict. It is an indulgent, meandering and of film at Columbia University — ranks along- (“I couldn’t live on the money my parents play again and again. The movie made the public ultimately stunning epic, stamped with his signa- side Stanley Kubrick and Soviet visionary An- gave me”). for this music,’’ says Kusturica. tures: gunfire, kooky animals, boozy weddings, drei Tarkovsky as the three titans of cinema. He was already a famous director when he The band’s high jinks were captured in Super blaring musical interludes. “The arts today are without gurus.” He sighs, started playing bass guitar in Zabranjeno Pu- 8 Stories, the filmmaker’s grungy, award-win- Kusturica’s portrayal of war and its victims is sips his rose. “There are only producers doing senje (No Smoking), a Sarajevan outfit in the ning 2001 tour diary. Featuring images of Kustu- even more visceral (and metaphorical) than projects that fool around with nothing. I strong- vanguard of the irreverent, black-humoured rica and his family (he also has a daughter, usual: there are burned and shredded bodies, a ly believe that we all want to see fundamental new primitivism movement. They had fallen Dunja) and archival footage of the former Yugo- minefield’s worth of exploding sheep carcasses, questions being answered. Which is why, open- from grace and needed his celebrity. slavia in ruins, it details the making of the video white geese thrown one by one into a bathtub ing the festival, we have a movie [The Woman Two years previously their lead singer Nele for Unza Unza Time’s title track and the specta- brimming with pig’s blood. Who Left] by a Filipino director [Venice Golden Karajlic had caused a political and media cles that are their concerts. Along with lit-up “Do you see what I was saying about war?” he Lion winner Lav Diaz] who is using a conflict scandal by likening a broken Marshall amp to spinning guitars, a violin being played on a bow says later. “Nobody benefits.” from one of Tolstoy’s short stories. dictator Marshal Tito, who had arguably held inside a shoe and group headbanging to passages “As a young filmmaker I learned from Felli- Yugoslavia together and whose death in 1980 from Deep Purple’s anthem Smoke on the Water, Emir Kusturica & the No Smoking Orchestra ni’s way of thinking,” he continues. “I still follow saw simmering tensions resurface. Having the NSO is joined by British punk legends the perform at WOMADelaide on Saturday, March 11. the iconography of Tarkovsky. Kubrick’s mov- Kusturica in the line-up overcame the en- ies made me believe that great art is possible; he forced media and concert bans and revived was originally a photographer so visually he was their popularity. Job done, he left in 1988 and always coming with the ideas.” only became fully involved a decade later. Kusturica’s films are similarly praised for The original Zabranjeno Pusenje broke up their vivid imagery, along with the fact that, de- in 1990, after relations between Karajlic, an spite the bleakness of his subject matter (Under- ethnic Serb, and fellow frontman Sejo Sexon, ground is about a group of people who are an ethnic Croat, disintegrated. When the Bos- unaware the war is over and continue to live nian War began in 1992, Karajlic fled to Bel- underground, influenced by propaganda), his grade, where he created a popular TV satire identifying stamp is one of raucous joy. show called Surreal Top List and re-formed He scowls. “When critics in the West want to the band on the back of his fame. Sexon fled to insult you they always say your film is ‘visually Zagreb in Croatia where he also helmed a interesting’,” he complains. “And there is no joy band called No Smoking; from the mid to late in my movies. They are f..king heavy. I suffer so 1990s, two outfits with the same name worked much when I am working because I am not as in parallel. talented as I believe I am.” He gazes out at the Karajlic’s version featured original violinist valley, thinking. “Movies, movies, movies. Not Dejan Sparavalo, crack players from bars music. Music is good therapy.” around Belgrade and Kusturica’s son Stribor The story of the No Smoking Orchestra mir- on drums. In 1998 they composed the music rors the story of the Bosnian War, as well as the for Black Cat, White Cat, a slapstick, apolitical tale of a football-obsessed bad boy who was gypsy-gangster love story and worldwide box packed off to film school in Prague by his father, office smash. Renamed Emir Kusturica and a journalist and staunch communist deter- the No Smoking Orchestra, the band released mined to get his only child on the straight and an album titled Unza Unza Time and began narrow. Kusturica graduated in 1978, having touring their effervescent mash-up of punk, supplemented his studies by hopping over to jazz and folk.

theaustralian.com.au/review March 4-5, 2017 V1 - AUSE01Z01AR