In my experience, movies about the wars of Yugoslavia have been difficult to make for a myriad of reasons. There is no shortage of subject matter, No shortage of reference material, and no shortage of personal memories. Something that happened 30 years ago is still not that long into the past, and you could ascertain this from speaking to anyone who lives in the region.
What makes it difficult to produce these movies, is that there is actually *too* much to try and make a movie about. If one were to try and depict every horror that decade saw, it would be never-ending. It is also because of this, that writers and directors tend to simply get lost in what their vision is. They want to amplify the feelings of something so painful, so other-worldly, and they lose direction trying to figure out how to convey it in artistic language. It becomes a slog of misery.
This movie knows what it wants to be. It is excellent. It is also very sad.
It is a painful work of art, which, at its core, focuses on how the war in Bosnia was one that did not discern with its victims. It is how people who, living all their lives harmoniously with one another, one day decided they had to kill their neighbors. Their best friends. Their own family. It was an event that consumed anyone and everyone, and spat out only husks of people who--though perhaps lucky enough to not die with their fathers or mothers or sons--were unlucky enough to never forget the day they lost them.
It is difficult to convey to an adequate degree how lost and hysteric the former Yugoslavian people still are about what happened. It is even more difficult to blame them for their feelings--their souls were ripped from their bodies, their sense of home forever changed--there is no longer the same comfort in continuing to live. This is why movies like this keep being made. Because the war only ended on paper. It continues on in their hearts. And it continues to devastate and divide people every day. And millions suffocate on their own memories, desperate to have us understand, and be understood.
This film is a cautionary tale. It is to beg you:
Please, learn something.
Be something more than what we have become.
More than the sum of a mistake which cannot be erased.
Your future depends on it.
What makes it difficult to produce these movies, is that there is actually *too* much to try and make a movie about. If one were to try and depict every horror that decade saw, it would be never-ending. It is also because of this, that writers and directors tend to simply get lost in what their vision is. They want to amplify the feelings of something so painful, so other-worldly, and they lose direction trying to figure out how to convey it in artistic language. It becomes a slog of misery.
This movie knows what it wants to be. It is excellent. It is also very sad.
It is a painful work of art, which, at its core, focuses on how the war in Bosnia was one that did not discern with its victims. It is how people who, living all their lives harmoniously with one another, one day decided they had to kill their neighbors. Their best friends. Their own family. It was an event that consumed anyone and everyone, and spat out only husks of people who--though perhaps lucky enough to not die with their fathers or mothers or sons--were unlucky enough to never forget the day they lost them.
It is difficult to convey to an adequate degree how lost and hysteric the former Yugoslavian people still are about what happened. It is even more difficult to blame them for their feelings--their souls were ripped from their bodies, their sense of home forever changed--there is no longer the same comfort in continuing to live. This is why movies like this keep being made. Because the war only ended on paper. It continues on in their hearts. And it continues to devastate and divide people every day. And millions suffocate on their own memories, desperate to have us understand, and be understood.
This film is a cautionary tale. It is to beg you:
Please, learn something.
Be something more than what we have become.
More than the sum of a mistake which cannot be erased.
Your future depends on it.