An unbearable stench makes quite wide confusion among the residents of Belgrade. The microbiologist Pavle can not remember immediately where he smelled it, but recalls the event he witnessed as a child and the smell of a burning human. A visit to the crematorium gives him the assurance: The high number of suicides in the city has meant that the ovens are in continuous operation and will probably stay that way - because the stench is slowly making other people commit suicide, too.
Direction
Gilić turns communist housing blocks into purgatory
Production
That crematorium sequence will haunt your nostrils
Acting
Nikolić's dead-eyed unraveling is quietly devastating

Director
Vlatko Gilić
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Made during Yugoslavia's 'Black Wave' cinema movement, where filmmakers used genre to critique Tito's socialist project—this one basically says the system literally stinks people to death.
The crematorium's 'continuous operation' was reportedly shot in an actual working facility; the crew's discomfort wasn't acting.