An escaped monkey becomes the symbol of a country’s suffrage
M IS FOR MACEDONIA
I love animals but I don’t like films about animals, because they’re usually saccharine sweet, or involve some kind of cruelty, or both. This film, however, was perfect in this aspect because it’s a political tragicomedy and the monkey was played by a man in a monkey costume. And I refuse to hear that this is somehow outdated: no, in fact, that’s how it’s supposed to be done.
The plot follows Cobe, who is fired from the Skopje zoo, and the chimp in his care, Coco, who escapes his cage soon after. At first Cobe decides to catch Coco to try and get his job back, but the monkey’s escape soon becomes part of a larger narrative about Macedonia’s identity, where Coco is proclaimed a national hero and a “Robin Hood”. Amazing political satire.
Year of the Monkey (Година на Маjмунот), 2018
Director: Vladimir Blazevski
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