The "plot" is a Rube Goldberg machine of parricidal impulses. The family’s greatest ambition is to finally bury their aging, tyrannical grandfather (also Pantelija). However, he stubbornly refuses to die. The marathon of the title is not a sporting event but the endless, circular struggle of daily life: getting up, arguing, digging a grave, filling it, fighting over the family coffin (which is kept on a pedestal as a status symbol), and collapsing back into bed. When a rival funeral home, run by the eccentric "Bela" (The White One) and his silent, hulking son, enters the fray, the petty rivalry escalates into a full-scale war of caskets, corpses, and honor.
The Marathon Family is not a film you watch. It is a film you survive. And you are better—or at least more honestly cynical—for having done so. maratonci trce pocasni krug ceo film
In the pantheon of Eastern European cinema, few films capture a nation’s soul through absurdist laughter as ruthlessly as Slobodan Šijan’s Maratonci trče počasni krug (1982). Often hailed as the quintessential Yugoslav—and subsequently Serbian—black comedy, the film is a whirlwind of screaming, gunfire, mud, and existential despair disguised as slapstick. To watch The Marathon Family is not merely to observe a story about a dysfunctional funeral home dynasty; it is to witness a scathing philosophical treatise on the cyclical nature of Balkan history, family trauma, and the impossibility of escape from one’s own inheritance. The Plot: A Treadmill of Death The film takes place over roughly 24 hours in a nameless, provincial Serbian town just before World War II. The central location is the Topalović family funeral parlor, a morbidly ironic business run by the patriarch, Pantelija (Mija Aleksić). The family consists of Pantelija’s two quarrelsome sons—Milisav and Mirko—their ne'er-do-well cousin Aksentije, and a revolving door of grandchildren, all named "Maksimilijan" after the grandfather. The "plot" is a Rube Goldberg machine of parricidal impulses
But beyond its regional fame, the film stands as a universal masterpiece of tragicomedy. It asks the question: What if Sisyphus was not alone, but had a family—and they were all screaming at each other? The answer is terrifying and hilarious. The marathon never ends. The lap is eternal. And somewhere, the Topalović family is still running, covered in mud, chasing a death that will not come, laughing and crying at the same time. The marathon of the title is not a