Wheels

Wheels is a contemporary black thriller that is more humorous than threatening. Nemanja, a young man from Belgrade, drives an old car to the countryside to visit his father. It is drizzling when he leaves home, but by the time he is on the open road, the rain is falling in bucketfuls. The bad weather is only his first setback. The road is closed by a flood, he has a puncture in the middle of a fairytale pine forest and he is arrested by a couple of overly fanatical cops. There is nothing else for it than to spend a night in the grubby hotel on the road, with the apt name ‘Tockovi’ (The Wheel). Suspicious guests are staying at the hotel and they think that Nemanja is a long-sought serial killer, because he happens to have a pistol. Nemanja had found it in the car. He decides to prove his innocence and chooses a pretty roundabout way to do so. In this nerve-wracking situation, Nemanja finds a new talent in himself. Wheels craftily skirts the position of Serbia in world politics, although themes such as fear and injustice are evoked in the film. Milosavljevic masterfully maintains lightness in this sinister context. In Serbia he was best known as the writer of plays and scripts; Wheels brought him international success.