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In the former Yugoslavia’s greatest filmmaker, Emir Kusturica, returned to his homeland after a five-year absence to confront the disintegration of his country with a dazzling epic allegory, “Underground,” which took two years to make and which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in

Best known for the Oscar-nominated “When Father Was Away on Business” (), set in Yugoslavia’s harsh Stalinist period, and “Time of the Gypsies” (), a chronicle of a youth’s induction to petty crime, Kusturica also made the wonderfully offbeat romantic adventure “Arizona Dream” (), a revealing funny-sad slice of Americana with an equally wonderfully unexpected cast headed by Johnny Depp, Faye Dunaway, Jerry Lewis and Lili Taylor.

It takes a great deal of passion and sorrow to sustain a minute tragicomic farce, but only occasionally does “Underground,” which screens today through Thursday at the Port Theatre in Corona del Mar, grow weary.

It’s a sprawling, rowdy, vit