Balkan Brutality

Fine Dead Girls (First Run)
This strangely compelling 2002 drama from Croatian director Dalibor Matanic finds the ethnic strife and hatred of “foreigners” that characterized the Balkan War echoed in a Zagreb apartment complex, where several characters interact. The plot’s catalyst is the arrival of a lesbian couple who are reviled from the start, with initial mocking by their neighbors growing ominously until it turns to physical violence in a scene of undisguised nastiness. Without resorting to cheap shocks, Matanic shows how such brutality can rear its ugly head logically and unnervingly.