Männer in Nacht und Flammen

Hajrudin (Šiba) Krvavac is the only Yugoslavian (= Bosnian) film director whose body of features consist exclusively of partisan films. At the same time, he is arguably the most popular Yugoslavian director working in the genre , an inventor of supremely entertaining, shamelessly ahistorical, highly stylized, and action oriented partisan narratives – so-called Red Westerns – that could easily pass for a partisan version of a Spaghetti Western. Diverzanti is the first in his series of four immortal cult films – the other three are Most (1969), Valter brani Sarajevo (1972) and Partizanska eskadrila (1979) – that massive crowds from all over all the former republics of Yugoslavia (plus diasporas around the world) still worship. One could argue that Krvavac’s escapist extravaganzas coincided (or perhaps even spearheaded) the so-called Pink Wave of Yugoslavian cinema in the late 1960s and early 1970s, delegated from above to suppress the ideologically much more ambivalent and artistically ambitious spirit of the Yugoslavian Black Wave. Then again, what is wrong with promoting the agenda of brotherhood and unity, especially if the ideological message is so positive, unashamedly visible and even delivered with a healthy sense of irony? In Diverzanti, the suspenseful account of a suicide mission, Krvavac excels in mixing action, comedy, and tragedy, and expertly toys with the concepts of public duty and personal responsibility at a time of great distress. (Viennale)