Is there anyone beneath us?

The text analyzes symbols and metaphors very often repeated and used in all types of discourse on the break-up of the former Yugoslavia, from the journalistic to the academic one. In wars and sieges in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, tunnels and underground passages represented roads to possible freedom; we can thank connections with labyrinths, bridges, tunnels and "natural catastrophes" for oversimplifications as well as nuanced discussions. This partly explains why underground passages are a repeated metaphor in films on the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s. This text focuses on a critical and ideological analysis of two films in which the underground or a cave (or a tomb) can be interpreted as an image of an imagined community (nation): Underground (Emir Kusturica, 1995) and Pretty Village, Pretty Flame (Srđan Dragojević, 1996).

Sanjin Pejković