(Serbia 2014)

After his wife leaves him, Marko (Boris Milivojevic) comes up with a way to revitalize his janky small Serbian town—and hopefully win back his wife, Ljubinka (Natasa Tapuskovic), in the process: he sets his sights on replacing a dreary old communist monument in the town center with something more exciting and “current:” a statue of the King of Pop, who he claims is attending its unveiling. You knock me off my feet now, baby…whooooo!

Monument to Michael Jackson is strange and wonderfully sublime, even if it is melancholy. The characters are realistic and fully developed, and the story is loaded with twists I didn’t see coming—like the reaction of many townspeople and the date of the unveiling (on May 25, 2009, the day Jackson died). I liked it, even with an ending that goes somewhere I was not expecting—at all. This definitely is not an American movie.

Director Darko Lungulov previously did Here and There, which I know from Cyndi Lauper’s title song for the soundtrack. Her husband, David Thornton, starred in it.

(St. Anthony Main) B+

Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival

http://www.monumenttomichaeljackson.com