Underground (1995)
Directed by Emir Kusturica
No — Underground is not woke, scoring 8 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
Emir Kusturica's Underground arrives at the table like a bottle from a cellar nobody has opened since 1995: a five-hour original cut trimmed to a theatrical 163 minutes, carrying an aroma of gunpowder, brass bands, and regret.
Consciousness Markers
The film satirizes war profiteering, black-market arms dealing, and Communist Party corruption, but this is a critique of political chicanery rather than a modern eat-the-rich economic polemic.
The film offers a heavily contested, mythologized reading of Yugoslav history (accused of Serbian propaganda and downplaying atrocities), but this is nationalist/absurdist revisionism rather than progressive historical reframing.
The film is an absurdist satire that dramatizes rather than preaches; it carries thematic weight but little direct moralizing or lecture energy.
An entirely Yugoslav/Serbian cast plays Yugoslav characters, which is naturalistic rather than a deliberate diversity-casting agenda. No modern representation-casting intent is present.
Natalija is a shifting, opportunistic femme-fatale figure rather than a vehicle for feminist messaging; the film has no feminist agenda.
No LGBTQ+ characters, themes, or subtext appear anywhere in the film.
The film engages ethnic/national conflict in the Balkans but offers no racial-consciousness framework or commentary.
No environmental or climate themes are present.
No body-positivity themes or messaging appear.
Ivan is portrayed as naive and childlike, but this is not framed as neurodivergence or disability advocacy.
Why it received this score
Emir Kusturica's Underground arrives at the table like a bottle from a cellar nobody has opened since 1995: a five-hour original cut trimmed to a theatrical 163 minutes, carrying an aroma of gunpowder, brass bands, and regret. The film follows Marko and Blacky, two Belgrade bon vivants who profit from the Communist resistance, and then follows the lie Marko builds around his friend, keeping an entire household underground for decades while insisting the war never ended. It took the Palme d'Or. It is a genuine epic. It is also, by the standards we apply here, a very dry vintage indeed.
Consider what is absent. The cast is entirely Yugoslav and Serbian, playing Yugoslav and Serbian characters, which reads as naturalism instead of a casting statement. There is no LGBTQ content, no environmental sermon, no body-positivity thread, no neurodivergence advocacy. Natalija drifts between men and causes like weather, an opportunistic femme fatale, not a vehicle for any gender politics. Ivan, the animal keeper, is childlike and gentle, and the film treats this as tragedy, not as a condition to be explained. The satire of war profiteering, black-market arms, and Party corruption is present, but it aims at political chicanery, at the specific rot of a specific regime, not at wealth itself.
What remains is a contested history and a refusal to lecture. The film's reading of Yugoslav collapse has been called Serbian propaganda by some and cheap mythmaking by others, a nationalist and absurdist invention that predates our current vocabulary for such things. It dramatizes. It does not preach. We score it accordingly, with respect and low numbers.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
Black marketeers Marko and Blacky manufacture and sell weapons to the Communist resistance in WWII Belgrade, living the good life along the way. Marko's surreal duplicity propels him up the ranks of the Communist Party, and he eventually abandons Blacky and steals his girlfriend. After a lengthy stay in a below-ground shelter, the couple reemerges during the Yugoslav Civil War of the 1990s as Marko sees the opportunity to exploit the situation.
Questions about Underground
Is Underground woke?
No — Underground is not woke, scoring 8 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does Underground have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Eat the Rich at 15.
How does Underground compare to other 1995 movies?
It ranks #47 of the 108 films from 1995 we've scored; their average is 12. The wokest is Total Eclipse (60).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.