Welcome to 25 for 25 my project to watch and eat my way around the world in 2025 with 25 movies from 25 countries matched with 25 country themed dinners. Today’s entry is Serbia but you can see the full Masterlist to watch and cook along with me.

Country: Serbia
Movie: Crna mačka, beli mačor [Black Cat, White Cat]
Director:  Emir Kusturica
Year: 1998
The Elevator Pitch: Small time crook Matko hatches a plan to rid himself of his debts by marrying off his son Zare to the local gangsters sister, it goes horribly.

How Was the Movie?: 

This movie is an overload. I think this is one of the few films in this entire project where I kind of feel like I need to watch it again because I think I missed so much. Every frame is completely jam packed with so much movement and color and strange characters that it’s hard to keep all the plates spinning.

The movie has so many twists and turns and it’s darkly comedic in its execution that it’s hard to do anything in some scenes but watch with a mixture of glee and terror at the same time. What I really loved about this film is that it feels like you are watching a fairy tale. Your emotions ping pong around as wild coincidences, curses, mutterings, and deals come and go but it is also very grounded in the relationships and interactions that people have with each other.

It’s as busy as a Terry Gilliam film can possibly get but it’s also as deeply human and dark as most of the Coen brothers films. I really enjoyed this one a lot and the performances from some of these people are completely off the wall. Every time a new character came into frame I felt deeply charmed.

I’m sure there’s a couple hundred essays written (or to be written) the politicians and social relationships in this film but you can also just enjoy the ride.

What was for Dinner?: 

I made burek sa sirom. I did an okay job for my first time but I was a little disappointed because I was envisioning something else I guess, it tasted great. There’s 500 ways to makes burek so I got a little stunned by which one I was going to choose to make so in the end I did my own thing (probably a kind of a mistake). This one ended up just okay, I think by the time I was actually cooking I was extremely annoyed and I didn’t want to take the time to very carefully layer things. The other problem is that I had square sheets and a round pan which was a stupid mistake on my part not to just switch pans. I think I should have broken up the cheese a little more as well because it had little clumps in the burek instead of melting like I wanted. 

We actually ate tons of burek when were in Montenegro for 2 weeks but funny enough by the time we got to Serbia, I don’t think we ate any at all?

I also made đuveč which is a delicious stewed vegetable dish. It’s a bit like ratatouille and generally it’s served with bread but we already were eating bread so we just ate it on its own and it was surprisingly good.

For dessert I made vanilice which I remember having in a cafe in Belgrade. They’re usually covered in powdered sugar but I didn’t have any in the house so I just skipped it. The dough has crushed walnuts inside of it and that pairs perfectly with the spiced plum jam I made for these (and because it’s plum time so my friend brought my 2 kilo of plums). I made a half recipe and it still made way too many cookies, we had to eat them all week with coffee.

All together it was a pretty good meal though I feel like if I could take a second try at the burek I could do better. 

That’s it for Serbia, see you next in the United States of America!