Time of the Gypsies (1988)

• Year: 1988
• Released: 09 Feb 1990
• Country: Yugoslavia, Italy, United Kingdom
• Adwords: 3 wins & 5 nominations
• IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097223/
• Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/time_of_the_gypsies
• Available in: 720p, 1080p,
• Language: Romany, Serbo-Croatian, Italian, English, German, Macedonian, Slovenian
• MPA Rating: R
• Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama
• Runtime: 142 min
• Writer: Emir Kusturica, Gordan Mihic
• Director: Emir Kusturica
• Cast: Davor Dujmovic, Bora Todorovic, Ljubica Adzovic
• Keywords: anarchic comedy, telekinesis, paranormal phenomena, gypsy,

	8.1/10
	100% – Critics
	97% – Audience

Time of the Gypsies Storyline

Perhan is a teenage gypsy boy with telekinetic powers. A wealthy gypsy, Ahmed, visits the village and promises to get Perhan’s sister the medical treatment she needs if they go with him to Italy. Perhan soon discovers that Ahmed’s business activities are quite shady and he is soon lured into Ahmed’s world.

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Time of the Gypsies Movie Reviews

Beautiful Gypsy Tale

In this luminous tale set in the area around Sarajevo and in Italy, Perhan, an engaging young Romany (gypsy) with telekinetic powers, is seduced by the quick-cash world of petty crime, which threatens to destroy him and those he loves.

In some way, this film can be seen as a parallel with “Stalker” because of the telekinesis aspect. That is a small part of the overall picture, though, and may not be a fair to compare he two. Either way, this film is much more light-hearted and with a bit of the surreal.

Whether the gypsy world is anything like the way the director makes it out to be, I have no idea. But based on this and his other films, it sure seems like a fun place to live.

Levitating forks and flying turkeys

Obviously I’m missing something here. As I write this, over seventy five percent of IMDb visitors to this film rate it higher than an ‘8’, and not one of the reviewers on this forum gave it less than a ‘4’. Not that it deserves a 1,2, or 3 rating, but it just seems unusual to me. Maybe it’s a cultural thing, or maybe I just don’t get what Emir Kusturica is trying to say with his pictures. His “Black Cat, White Cat” struck me the same way, and I did only slightly better with “Underground”. Like the first picture I mentioned, the characters here aren’t very appealing, to the point of being almost annoying. None of them will be making the pages of Esquire or Vanity Fair anytime soon. And what’s with the preponderance of waterfowl? There were plenty of geese in that one too. The hook for this story is the protagonist Perhan (Davor Dujmovic) having telekinetic ability, which he uses as a means to astonish or frighten others. It also proves to be his undoing in the final act, when he uses a flying fork to dispatch his uncle. Between the language barrier and somewhat disjointed scenes, I’m puzzled as to how this film cracks IMDb’s Top 250 list, making it for the first time in 2020. I can’t see it remaining there beyond a year.

Lacks focus and engagement

Perhan is a teenage gypsy boy with telekinetic powers. A wealthy gypsy, Ahmed, visits the village and promises to get Perhan’s sister the medical treatment she needs if they go with him to Italy. Perhan soon discovers that Ahmed’s business activities are quite shady and he is soon lured into Ahmed’s world.

Highly rated but directed by Emir Kusturica, whose movies seem to be highly rated regardless of their quality. ‘Underground’ deserves its kudos – it is genuinely brilliant – but I found ‘Black Cat, White Cat’ and ‘Arizona Dream’ quite empty, more style than substance, and the latter quite pretentious.

Unfortunately, ‘Time of the Gypsies’ falls more in the category of the latter two than of ‘Underground’. Like those two this film is full of irritating characters, thus limiting your engagement level. Even Perhan, the “hero” of the story, isn’t entirely likeable.

The plot and editing don’t help either. The film takes forever to go anywhere and when it does it’s still not that interesting. For the most part the film just drifts. More focus and a culling of many unnecessary scenes would have helped a lot.

There are some interesting scenes and sub-plots but these just lure you into thinking that the film is about to kick up a gear but then it goes back to circling the drain.

Dull and disappointing.