The only Oscar winner from the area of the former South, Danis Tanović, decided to look for an answer to the question of where the best kebabs are in Sarajevo in this charming, sympathetic and humanistic Kovidov humor drama. Probably this is one of the questions that every casual traveler asks when he arrives in the capital of BiH and decides to eat a famous meat delicacy somewhere in Baščaršija, and it is probably a question that raises the hair on the head of every owner of the local store. Of course, each of them is convinced that kebabs are the best with him, and that idea is the initiator of the action of the movie “Ten in Half” aka “Deset u Pola”. The film’s plot is set in May 2021, the coronavirus pandemic is still squeezing, but restaurants are slowly opening up.
Everyone is in a difficult situation because everything has been closed for a long time, and one morning an influencer from Zagreb enters Enesova (Branko Đurić) roastery in search of the best kebabs in Sarajevo. He sent it to his colleague Izet (Izudin Bajrović), and Enes’ innocent gesture will cause an unexpected breakup of the business and private lives of two friends, as well as the entire city. It will turn out that the woman from Zagreb is a well-known influencer and everyone will suddenly go to Izet’s store, and two until yesterday’s best friends will suddenly become rivals. However, Izo is not overly enthusiastic about the interest that came to his bar overnight, while Enes decided that his kebabs must be the best at all costs, so he will organize a competition of all kebab owners from the city.
Enes and Izo are not only friends, but Enes’ son and Iza’s daughter are in a relationship, so Lana has just returned from culinary studies in Germany and plans to return there soon. Her dear Orhan, who would stay in Sarajevo and continue her father’s business, is not very enthusiastic about that. But while Izet can’t wait for the day when he will retire and leave his job to his not overly interested daughter, Enes doesn’t really think of moving away and his son almost has the status of an auxiliary worker. And not only that, Enes also has some new business plans that require further borrowing, and this will get him into trouble with some dangerous types. And while in previous films, Tanović mostly dealt with serious topics, in “Ten in Half”, that seriousness is shrouded in a lot of humor, spirit and warmth.
Although “Ten in Half” is nominally a comedy, some much more serious topics such as guest work and differences in views on life and lifestyle are treated subtly. While Izo is a modest and realistic man with both feet on the ground, happy with what he has and not up to running into, Enes is the complete opposite. He is one of those ostentatious and intrusive types who is up to his throat in debt, and lives high above his means and constantly enters some new businesses as if trying to cover up some of his phallicities. Although they are best friends who drink coffee and sip brandy together every day, they are two completely different worlds and people of diametrically different characters and the way they look at the world around them.
Izo seems to symbolize an old, past time when people were happy with what they had, who had enough to be able to provide enough to feed their families through honest work, modesty and honesty. Enes, on the other hand, is a symbol of today’s world and he is a modern guy who never gets enough. A typical offshoot of our grotesque capitalism, in which everyone mumbles, compensates, borrows, and most importantly, they pretend to be what they are not. But when serious problems arrive for one of them, all quarrels and rivalries will be put aside and friendship and the desire to help will be decided. It was “Ten in Half”, a film that exudes humanism and warmth in which Izudin Bajrović as Izo, a calm and quiet man who is seemingly used to stoically endure everything that happens to him, even better than Đurić in his almost standard edition. Rating 7.5 / 10.
MORE MOVIE REVIEWS: INTREGALDE (2021, ROU) Movie review, plot, trailer, rating