User Reviews

We all like it, we all know it's bad to abuse it, and yet many people's lives get ruined by it eventually. That could be summed as the main plot idea for "Poseban Tretman" or "Special Treatment". A group of alcoholics on rehab travel to a brewery, as the ultimate confrontation with their addiction. It sounds a bit ironic, and it pretty much is, in the movie just as it is in real life.

"Poseba Tretman" is a form of a black comedy and social drama. The alcoholics all bare a tragic story of their lives amongst each other, and yet, they still carry a great addiction to alcohol within themselves. On the other hand, the doctor and leader of this expedition, a puritan in public, is also a secret alcoholic and sociopath.

But "Poseban Tretman" also speaks about another of life's truths, which is hidden between the lines a bit. Many of the actors involved were real alcoholics, and this was the role of their lives in a way. Why this is I don't know, but the line which Petar Kralj delivers at one point makes it easier to understand:

"When I was sober, the jitters made me stammer on scene, while when I was drunk, the stammering would disappear, but alas, my memory would too and thus I'd forget the lines..."

A good movie worth watching.

Another ace work from Goran Paskaljevic,the genius behind movies like "Varljivo leto '68","Vreme cuda","Someone Else's America" and "Bure baruta". This movie is about alcoholism and as such a rather dark one, specially at the end. Ljuba Tadic,excellent as always, plays a doctor who works with a group of alcoholics trying to solve the mystery-what is it in the human that makes him drink? This was also the alternative and popular title of this movie.

This story serves as a warning against getting into drinking and is one of the few that really tries to get to the bottom of why people drink and explain it. I think nobody can really answer that, but this movie comes close. The ending is quite bizarre and even comical in a dark way, specially the scene where Danilo Bata Stojkovic throws himself into a giant glass of beer, the "sculpture" of the anti-alcohol seminar, which also brings the irony into it all.

Milena Dravic got a Cannes award for best supporting actress,but I think all actors were equally great and Tadic and Stojkovic make one of their best performances here. Specially Stojkovic plays a very different character than in other films. "Poseban tretman" is a darkly humorous and brilliant study of alcoholism and belongs to the gallery of classic Yugoslav and European films. All hail Paskaljevic!