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Savrseni krug (1997)
A Genuine Time Capsule
A solid film, mixing raw war-horror with its psychological effects and challenges; chiefly, the immense grief and struggle that is associated with attempting to live and survive.
I cannot fathom how a person can go through something as traumatic and devastating as a genocidal civil war, and manage to release a film about it only 2 years after the bullets stopped flying, and the bombs stopped bursting. I could not possibly arrange my thoughts in any coherent way after dealing with something the likes of this, at least not for a long, long time. So much of it otherwise turns to noise. It is an absolute miracle that Kenovic was able to put something out of this quality, this quickly. I think he really did something serviceable here.
Part of why I find this movie incredible: the film cameras, the set, the actors; everyone and everything is nearly completely authentic. It is an almost absolutely sure thing that any person you look at in this movie lost many loved ones to the sort of scenes they depict and act within. It is possible that many of the actors were already in Sarajevo before joining this production. Their acting would involve simply going about their lives like it was yesterday. The buildings, rubble, and general devastation you see, is more than likely just how Sarajevo still was at time, due to the extent of the shelling and gunfire fire the city endured helplessly during those nearly 4 years of time. There would have been no difficulty in finding shoot locations, clothes, military costumes...It was more than readily available. Really, it was all quite regular.
Barring any number of sentiments on the writing itself, I think that really makes this to be something special and one-of-a-kind. But really. I think it's simply a good movie.
Halimin put (2012)
Poignant, Difficult to Watch
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.