Garbura

I didn't have much expecatation going into this at the Zagreb Film Festival, however Garbura still fell flat, for the large part.

Plot is rather all over the place, very much feeding of the traditional stereotypes built around the low to mid income Dalmatian suburbia, which results in a film that is tonally disconnected and hard to gauge. Also through it all, the plot was also way too predictable and overlong.

Another problem I have with this one is a heavy dose of HRT (Croatian national television) product placement. It's no secret that HRT always insist on "casually" inserting themselves into the movies they help produce, but in Garbura it really goes off the charts and turns off putting. I counted no less than 5 (!) times a television with HRT on was shown and heard in this film. This includes their New Years show program which was very conveniently shown in both households. Enough is enough. Stop it already.