Beautiful People (1999)

Cast Charlotte Coleman, Faruk Pruti, Dado Jehan

Jasmin Dizdar's BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE is a lively, darkly comic vision of Bosnian refugees making a new life in London, and the Londoners whose lives they change. As in Paul Thomas Anderson's MAGNOLIA, there are several plotlines running simultaneously, and they link together in surprising ways. Dizdar and his actors present these characters so vividly that the story is always easy to follow. Danny Nussbaum (as Griffin, a soccer hooligan who, in surreal fashion, finds himself in a war zone) and Charlotte Coleman (as Portia, a young doctor smitten with her Bosnian patient) are standouts in a fine cast. The film is shot mostly in a handheld, verité style that heightens its immediacy. Dizdar's storyline skirts tragedy, as the Bosnian immigrants deal with problems that the Londoners, with their own troubles, can barely imagine. But the film retains the hopeful attitude of its immigrant characters, and even some of the bleakest moments in the film have a black comic edge. Dizdar's first feature is a hearty laugh in the face of despair. Its ambition and scope, its deft handling of difficult material, and its consistently comic and chaotic tone, attest to an impressive young talent.

Un croate et un serbe, originaires du même village mais devenus ennemis suite à la guerre, se retrouvent par hasard dans le même bus à Londres et commencent à se disputer et à se battre. Pendant ce temps, d'autres réfugiés d'ex-Yougoslavie viennent chambouler la vie de quatre familles britanniques…