HIGH-SPIRITED CAPER `CAT' OUT OF THE BAG.

Byline: Janet Maslin The New York Times

The lighter side of Emir Kusturica's boisterous talent is let loose in ``Black Cat, White Cat.'' It's a mad scramble through the Fellini-esque realm of Kusturica's imagination, and it proves nothing if not this much: Give this man the Danube, Gypsy musicians and a camera, and you've got a party.

The starting point for ``Black Cat, White Cat'' was Kusturica's idea of making a documentary about the tuba-toting musicians who roamed through ``Underground.'' He evidently hoped to dispel some of the gloom inherent in that film's vision of his native Yugoslavia, and he began (with Gordan Mihic) to dream up a cheerfully absurd fable that would do the trick.

Most noticeably, Kusturica gave himself the chance to work rapturously out of doors, bringing high spirits to his innate fancifulness and earthy humor. This filmmaker takes an ``everything plus the kitchen sink'' approach to telling even the simplest story.

To be sure, Kusturica's one-man war on minimalism has its excesses. He isn't likely ever to be accused of knowing where (or when) to stop. But ``Black Cat, White Cat'' is made with such overriding jubilation that its coarseness is mostly liberating. There's not a gold tooth here that isn't lingered on lovingly, and not a pratfall that its characters won't take.

With a few exceptions, the film's cast is made up of non-professional Gypsy actors (a big grin seems to have been the main casting criterion), and they look so plausibly like relatives that the film's internecine plotting takes on added zest. The skulduggery here concerns two patriarchs (one a garbage dump magnate) and a lot of rascally young connivers.

The shifty Matko (Bajram Severdzan), who is the closest thing here to a hero, becomes involved in both a heist caper and in marrying off his son Zare (Florijan Ajdini) to the wrong woman, despite Zare's passion for a siren barmaid named Ida (Branka Katic). When a wedding finally comes about, the barefoot bride disguises herself as a tree stump, scampering through the forest in one of the film's best moments of delirious abandon.

Despite the potentially labored side of many gags here (there are corpses on ice in an attic, zanily concealed until the water starts dripping), ``Black Cat, White Cat'' is well worth admiring for its sheer glee. In a repetitive but irresistible turn, Srdan Todorovic plays a playboy gangster who's a scary, gold-chained Balkan throwback to the disco days, with a domestic situation that's wild enough for a movie of its own.

Kusturica so evidently adores this gangster and all of the film's other characters that ``Black Cat, White Cat'' becomes a wild, warts-and-all celebration of their lives. Like Fellini, he finds true grace where it's least expected and makes films utterly, uncompromisingly his own.

The Facts

The film: ``Black Cat, White Cat'' (R; strong language, drug use, some violence).

The stars: Bajram Severdzan, Florijan Ajdini, Jas'ar Destani, Adnan Bekir.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Emir Kusturica. Written by Kusturica and Gordan Mihic. Produced by Karl Baumgartner. Released by October Films.

Running time: Two hours, seven minutes.

Playing: Laemmle's Royal, West L.A.; Laemmle's Playhouse 7, Pasadena.

Our rating: Three stars.

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PHOTO Branka Katic, left, and Florijian Ajdini in ``Black Cat, White Cat.''