AllMovie

Carried by incisive dialogue and a fast-paced script, rather than action and multiple events, this political drama by Fadil Hadzic focuses on a few crucial events in the life of an ambassador to a Western nation (Miodrag Radonovic). Caught up in his own political career, the ambassador is a stranger to his grown children, and when his wife dies, they are even more alienated from him, especially since he was partially to blame for her death. As the annual date of the mother's death approaches, the daughter in the family continues to be overwhelmed by depression and is pushed over the edge when her father brings a new female companion home. Her brother handles his own grief by devoting himself to women and sex. The family dynamics and the political context of the ambassador's job are the fodder for analysis and commentary when various people come into the picture as canny, sometimes neutral, sometimes amoral observers -- these are primarily a repairman and dinner guests. It is their dialogue that forms the substance of the film.