Product Details

• Actors: Eva Ras, Slobodan Aligrudic, Ruzica Sokic, Miodrag Andric, Aleksander Kostic
• Directors: Dusan Makavejev
• Format: Black & White, Dubbed, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: Russian
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Facets
• VHS Release Date: November 19, 1998
• Run Time: 70 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00000F4SI
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #346,051 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chaotic Fun, December 21, 2002

By 

Carl West (Falls Church, VA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "Love Affair: Or, The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator " [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I had seen `WR' and `Man is Not a Bird' before this one, but `Love Affair' instantly became my favorite Makavejev film. Actually, it's one of my Top 5 now.

The subtitles suffer from the white-on-white phenomenon in a couple of places, but you can still always tell what the characters are talking about, and the film itself is so excellent that it doesn't really matter. Eva Ras was my favorite actress in `Man is Not a Bird' (in which she had a charming supporting role), and she steals the show here in her own film. Regarding the actual story, it's about a young switchboard operator (Ras) who has a free-wheeling - and ultimately tragic - fling with a rat-catcher named Ahmed. This tale is interspersed with clips of a doctor of "Sexology" explaining his theories, clips of a criminologist discussing the tragic climax of the love affair story, and a couple of inexplicable scenes of two male and female nude models doing some sort of performance art.

When I watch this film, I can't help but feel that we all "lost the plot" in the 80s and 90s. There was more than enough naivety in the 60s - young hippies making idiots of themselves, etc. - but this film shows the REAL revolution. I wasn't born until 1971, but watching this film gives me that Miniver Cheevy feeling that I was born too late. And there is no way a film this magical could be made today.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not for Everyone, December 29, 2009

By 

Cary B. Barad (Baltimore, MD) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: "Love Affair: Or, The Case of the Missing Switchboard Operator " [VHS] (VHS Tape)

A black-and-white subtitled foreign film with an emphasis on the strange, the weird and the different. Obviously not for everyone. Most useful as a behind the scenes look at life in everyday Yugoslavia before it disintegrated. This film also introduces several retro propaganda clips originally produced in earnest by the Communist regime but now quite comical. The plot itself is something of a mish-mash with little or no linearity.