Black Cat, White Cat is a farcical 1998 Serbian romantic comedy with plenty of slapstick violence and colorful characters. Directed by Emir Kusturica, also known for Time of the Gypsies, the film follows the hilarious romantic entanglements of a small community living on the edge of the Danube River.
Matko Destanov, a cowardly petty criminal, approaches larger-than-life gangster Grga Pitic for aid in a money-making scheme. Destanov lies to Pitic, telling him that his father, the old gangster's closest friend, is dead Hilarity ensues when Destanov Sr. emerges from hospital.
Meanwhile, Matko's son, Zare, who is as honest as his father is corrupt, is hopelessly in love, but his father makes a deal to marry him off to the sister of Ax-Crazy criminal Dadan when the scheme starts going wrong.
Provides examples of:
- Extreme Omnivore: All along the film, a pig is shown to be slowly eating a whole car.
- Groin Attack: Afrodita Karambolo does this to her tailor.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Matko spends the whole film making dodgy deals with Dadan. In a sad yet satisfying scene towards the end he gambles away everything to the same Dadan that he saw as his benefactor.
- Pale Females, Dark Males: Inverted by the title felines (and made clearer in languages, such as Serbo-Croat, in which the words for male and female cats are different). As revealed when we briefly see them having sex near the end of the film, the black cat is female, while the white cat is male.
- Shout-Out: Grga Pitić is a big fan of Casablanca. He is seen watching it several times during the film, and quotes Rick's final line ("Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.") to his old friend Zarije in the final scene.
- Toilet Humor: The scene with Dadan and the outhouse. The outhouse is rigged to collapse, so that when the laxative that Dadan has been slipped takes effect and he runs into the outhouse, he is dropped into the years' worth of human waste that has collected below it.
- Would Hit a Girl: Dadan slaps Ida, has his sister lowered into cold water several times, and will bite anything that moves.
