For those that haven’t heard of this move, or have and don’t remember it, this is Angelina Jolie’s directorial debut and it takes place during the Bosnian War. It’s almost impossible to really talk about this movie without also talking about Jolie herself as you can bet NOBODY would be talking about it if Jolie wasn’t the writer and director of it. In fact, I doubt it would have gotten a theatrical release or that I would have gotten a chance to see it at a mainstream AMC theater instead of some ultra-independent theater that charges 16 bucks a ticket.
What Works: At the center of the controversy is the fact that the movie is actually a love story between a Serbian military commander and the Muslim woman he is holding hostage…when his father is not putting pressure on him to kill her. This has been the part that has thrown people for obvious reasons as we’re supposed to buy their love (despite the fact that he’s part of the army wiping out her entire people) or at least the love that he has for her. Well I did even though most reviewers didn’t. I felt like his strangely romantic love of her at night was his way of dealing with the guilt of killing these people by day (a self-styled hero in his own mind) and it helps that we’re never entirely sure if the feeling is mutual on her end or a survival strategy. I also like that the movie attempted to at least articulate why the Serbs felt they had to eradicate the Muslims from Bosnia, and how it makes sense to them…even if we can tell that they’re really just self-deluded murderers. By doing that it shows just how easy it is to get caught up in thinking you’re the good guy even when doing terrible things (not entirely different than the Minute Men who sit on our border with Mexico to “defend” the country they love…by shooting defenseless immigrants.)
What Doesn’t Work: Although the movie was better than I thought it would be and at first you think Jolie has picked something very challenging for her debut (it is, after all, shot in a language she doesn’t speak with English subtitles) after a while you start to feel a little too comfortable with these characters. The movie’s central romance feels less like an exploration of these two characters and more like Jolie’s hiding from the vicious battlefield truths. It doesn’t just feel like the lead wants to retreat into his bedtime pursuits with a foxy Muslim, it feels like she does too…and the movie isn’t quite as hard to watch as it truly should have been given the extreme depravity of the Serbian “Army” which was really just a band of rapists and child killing thugs.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Maybe not spent so long writing this review for a movie few have heard of and fewer still will watch lol.