Synopsis
The Powder Keg started life as a stage play in 1995, and looks at the intersecting lives of a group of characters over one event-filled night in Belgrade. Among them are Michael (Paskaljevic regular Miki Manojlovic), returning home in hopes of a reconciliation with his estranged wife; a family of Bosnian Serb refugees camped out in a garage; a gum-chewing young man who hijacks a bus because the driver's coffee-break has lasted too long; a student revolutionary who has given up idealism for dealing in alcohol, drugs and cigarettes; a car driver driven to an extreme act of road-rage...The point is clear: the city has gone to hell, as a country in which the official philosophy has for so long been one of macho aggression tries to come to terms with its disintegration.
But, as admirers of Paskaljevic will scarcely be surprised to learn, The Powder Keg, for all the tragic subjects with which it deals, is essentially a comedy, turning an absurdist eye on present-day Serbia.
