The Crime That Changed Serbia

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The Crime That Changed Serbia (Serbian: Bидимо се у читуљи, Vidimo se u čitulji, literally translated as See You in the Obituary) is a 1995 film by Janko Baljak. It speaks about crime in Serbia which rose rapidly during the civil war in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The film is composed of fragments from interviews with criminals and police officers taken in the 1990s. The film shows photographs of criminals who, with members of their gangs, are all fully equipped with guns.

War-struck Serbia is a frustrated nation. Young people realise that their future offers them only poverty, uncertainty and fear. As in many cities of ex-Communist countries in which the standard of living falls off rapidly, the young are easily tempted by the money, the glamour and the delights, the things that are offered to one if a member of a gang. In the words of one of the interviewees "Every young man in Serbia dreams of becoming a member of a gang for five minutes in his life." The same person adds that "Mortals (that is, ordinary people) will not experience in their entire life what one of us experiences in one day."

It is a generation that wants it all and it wants it now. Their idols are notorious criminals such as Carlos and Arkan. They acknowledge the fact that criminal activity in Serbia has not reached Western standards because of the lack of "professionalism."

The power of the film is that criminals themselves are talking about crime in Serbia. They explain how things work and assess the positive and negative aspects of the criminal profession in the country. It is a unusual and disquieting opportunity for the viewer to peer into the underworld of the Balkans. The last scenes - the funerals of three of the people who had been interviewed and were killed during the shooting of the film - came to remind us that what we have seen and heard, no matter how unbelievable it may seem, is real. It is a documentary based on an original idea, rarely seen in the past and its immediacy make it compelling viewing.