The sea of cultural context drifting through Emir Kusturica’s Underground does more harm than good: international audiences are guaranteed to be lost in translation. From an outsider’s perspective, half the battle of Underground does not take place in the story line: it is fought in the name of simply understanding the setting. Scene upon scene, Emir layers the double-decker fudge cake of Underground with thick cultural icing.

Peter Porpara is a name Google does not even know, but is mentioned in several key parts of the film. It apparently has a context to former Yugoslavs, but Kusturica enjoys keeping his audience in the dark. Is the electric chair a common theme in German torture, or is something going on behind the scenes? Yugoslavians must be famous for their swaying hyperbole acting; the audience in Underground was quite pleased with the literally rocking on stage performance. What exactly is a “pole man” and how does that quality save a human from being killed by shock therapy?

The fog of culture is high in Emir’s masterpiece, but it only adds to the emotion of Underground. The endlessly assault of new ideas and places gives the movie a sense of intensity nonexistent in Hollywood films. It is true that the political motives of this film are far-reaching, but an international audience would have to spend hours on Wikipedia to understand the context.

Yes: the morals, plot and artistry imbued within Underground embolden Emir’s work. However, the effort requisite for an average American to discover the beauty in this Yugolavian film is astronomical.

On an international level: good idea, bad implementation.