U registraturi (1974) User Reviews

Excellent series based on a great Croatian novel

[dantemacka · 9/10 · 28 July 2014]

Even by today's standards one of the best Jugoslavenian/Croatian television miniseries based on an excellent novel written by Ante Kovacic. A drama in which we follow a life of young Ivica and his path of growing up from a rural child to a city gentlemen when on the other side the story portraits all of the best and worst of Croatian rural and city life of the mid 19th century. The series is not boring, but indeed interesting mostly because of the all other side stories. Ivica's family, life in the country to which he returns but it is never the same, his inability to cope the rural and the city way of life, the love story, and probably the most interesting; the backgrounds of the all of the side characters who ultimately seem to be ones to hold the action throughout the series.

This series is unfortunately a lost pearl to anyone who is not a Balkan inhabitant, and I would personally recommend it to anyone who likes to see a good and deep story, a beautiful scenery, and would like to know a life of central Croatia during the mid 19th century; even though the series was filmed in the 70's.

a mediocre TV series based on an excellent novel

[mikic-3 · 3/10 · 30 December 2007]

This is a mediocre TV series based on an excellent novel written in 1888 by the Croatian 19th-century writer Ante Kovacic. Whereas the novel is abundant with character portrayals, suspension, and landscapes descriptions, the TV series offers a row of boring sequences with poor acting, bad settings, and leaves nothing to hope for in terms discovering the psychological portraits of characters. In Kovacic' book, Laura is a mad, evil, but in the same time a beautiful lady, and her character has a certain development through the novel. None of these features can be vaguely recognized in the Ljubica Jovic' act. The setting is absolutely horrible, all the scenes seem to have been situated in a poorly equipped studio, and you can barely tell if the scene takes place in a peasant's house, a city house or a local tavern. The excruciatingly boring is the wedding scene, where the folk singing and dancing lasts too long, diminishing the very few moments of urbanity throughout the series.