A Friend of the Deceased

Like so many of the movies being made in Eastern Europe nowadays, A Friend of the Deceased is ultimately an allegory about the transition from Communism to whatever the hell it is that's taken its place over the past several years; the plot involves an out-of-work translator who, in a fit of existential depression, takes out a contract on his own life, then is forced to scramble when his encounter with a life-affirming hooker (please let this be an endangered species) finds him rethinking his desire for continued corporeal existence. I hate to whine about something as jejune as the believability of the central narrative hook, but I must in all candor confess that what prevented me from more thoroughly enjoying this intelligent and incisive black comedy was a single nitpicky fact: I simply did not buy the notion that our hero, upon realizing his error, was too proud to pick up the phone and dial the would-be assassin and say "hey, about that job I hired you for, funny story, it's kinda like this..." In fact, I scoffed at that notion. And kept scoffing for the rest of the picture. I'm still scoffing now, in fact. Recommended, nevertheless. (M. D'Angelo)