How did we manage before the internet? I cannot help thinking that, living in a provincial town with a modest library, that I must have existed in a perpetual state of unsatisfied curiosity. Did I spend hours each evening staring into space vainly trying to remember who wrote that, what was that movie called, what ever happened to and so forth.I wish there was some means of quantifying how much my knowledge has increased in the ten years or so that I have had access to the internet. And I believe that this knowledge has enhanced my life, and that I am just as able as ever to live an ordinary life ( by which I mean I haven't sacrificed other aspects of my life in order to sit numbly in front of a monitor).
During the early eighties I remember chancing upon a late night screening of an enchanting movie. a rites of passage story set in 1960's Sarajevo. I remembered that the name Dolly featured in the title, that the protagonist was called Dino, and that the soundtrack included prominent use of a fantastically exotic sounding song about a large number of kisses.
Everybody's clever nowadays, so many of you will already know that I am referring to the 1981 debut of the Serbian director Emir Kusturica, Sjećaš li se Doli Bel? , and that the song in question was Adriano Celentano's 24 Mila Baci .
Here's the song (which I hadn't heard since seeing the movie):
Addendum: Since writing this piece I recently saw the movie for the first time in about 25 years. My memory had not deceived me- a fantastic film, highly recommended.
