The Scariest Old Movies on a Big Screen This Week: Halloween Weekend Repertory Cinema Picks
Déjà Vu (1987)
Directed by Goran Markovic
An awkward piano teacher Mihailo (Mustafa Naderevic), breaks the ice of his wild obsession with a much younger colleague Olgica (Anica Dobra) by asking her to the orchestra. Not only does she accept; they embark on a heavy love affair. As the affair blossoms, however, Mihailo begins to have flashbacks revealing a nightmarish childhood: his father forced him to play piano infinitely, his father had affairs with the maid, the maid tortured him, his parents divorced under bloody circumstances, and finally, with the rise of Communist rule, he witnessed his father sentenced to death. Meanwhile Olgica is busy organizing a Communist TV talent show wherein Mihailo will play the piano. Stricken by déjà vu (driven by increasingly disturbing reflections of the past), he is unable to perform, and the show is ruined. Olgica is pissed, and decides to get a new boyfriend, driving Mihailo over the edge and on a gruesome killing spree. His path to insanity mirrors that of his childhood, painting a clear picture of continuous Communist repression in Belgrade and its ensuing darkness. Samuel T. Adams (October 30, 5pm at the Spectacle)