DVD In the Land of Blood and Honey
Run time: 127 min
Rating: 4.3
Genres: Drama | Romance | War
Director: Angelina Jolie
Writers: Angelina Jolie
Stars: Zana Marjanovic, Goran Kostic, Rade Serbedzija
|
|
Storyline During the Bosnian War, the captive Bosnian Ajla is brought with other women to a Serbian barrack to serve the soldiers. The commander Danijel recognizes Ajla that he met in a night-club and wooed her and he discreetly protects her. They rekindle their love, but can they trust on each other? Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil |
|
Plot Keywords: soldier, bosnian war, church, bus, shot in the head | |
Details: Country: USA Release Date: 16 February 2012 (Netherlands) |
|
Box Office Budget: $10,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $9,479 (USA) (30 December 2011) Gross: $301,305 (USA) (2 March 2012) |
|
previous post
4 comments
I am no Serb/Croat/Bosnian… the film tells nothing about events i have encountered whatsoever so i have no interest whatsoever in choosing sides..,I am Just someone who enjoys cinema if it's good.But…this Film held almost nothing pour moi.The script seemed to lead nowhere..i seriously had the feeling a few times that the Director lost all control as to where we where heading.I mean we watch a couple dancing..suddenly there's an explosion en after that there is no reference to that explosion what so ever.When they later meet again, it's as if they never saw each other before.The character studies are awfully weak and stereotypical…why bother witch Photographical composition, well lit scenes etc.when awful things like mass-rape are taking place…I'v read in other reviews ' but it was very beautifully photographed' in this story that's a weakness IMO.In the first part we see the main character,Aijla wearing a lovely yellow coloured sweater..which gives great looking camera color & compositions and atmosphere…but…why? Why still bother which such details to make thing look good on a screen while mass rape and murder is taking place? some script changes are absolutely ridiculous and very far fetched.. another nuisance…the constant very close-up manner of filming the battle scenes..i found that disturbing and a style figure…..and yes.., many people complain about this ,..in this film about the Bosnian carnage the focus lies on the Serbian atrocities during this war..but that's no problem IMO..this film is a story about what happened to a part of the Bosnian victims.The Serbian side of the Bosnian-war story may be told by another film… My main objection is the creative shortcoming. It,to me was a boring movie.and should hold lessons in Filmmaker/vision For Jolie.Next time better !
This film to me looked like a schoolgirls naive-sentiment in viewing the horror's of war. But those horrors were not presented in a horrible way… i presume the situation in reality was hell. We see a very stylish hell..with neat framed scenes , an unbelievable and for me, totally distant sort of 'love' story.., a very weak script to act on it must have been for the actors… , nice clothing and beautiful light.
I was really in awe as to where the story took me..very far-fetched and naive. and the casting …very much stereo-typing..not a creative choice of cast.Why have them speak American with a Balkan accent? you see this in a lot of films…to make it 'more realistic..but it easily becomes mediocre…It's far better & stronger to have them speak either Serb-Croatian or plain English… I never understand why they do that….and do not break-away from such a film-making dogma.
let this 1th directional misser be a lesson For Jolie !
As a neutral viewer, let me first say about the movie's setting and theme, rallying to support or vote against the movie and all these 1/10 and 10/10 reviews.
So here are the facts:
– the movie's goal is "honor the women victims of war" and portray war horrors – it is said that it is not supposed to take sides – the plot takes place in Serb prison camp and all war criminals portrayed are exclusively Serbs
These three lines are enough to explain all the fuss about this movie in the media. It was a war – and anyone who is at least a bit more deep than to eat whatever media serves, knows what any war is really like. It is often said that it was a "brother-killing" war, and there is an especially influential political background story to this one:
http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/understanding-balkan-wars
All 4 sides (UN is the 4th, doing mostly nothing) have to share their responsibility, like all sides have to in any war. I applaud the director's idea about telling the story of women victims of the war. But to do so completely one-sidedly, while saying it is supposed to "honor the victims of war" is very irresponsible and bound to receive the negative attention it has. Imagine if any Hollywood producer would create a movie about atrocities done to German soldiers by the Allies in WWII – not on the same scale, but same problem.
For some truly great films about this war (all sides can agree to that), see "No Man's Land" and "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame".
In my opinion, the message of the movie is severely damaged by shifting the focus of a lot of viewers to lack of neutrality and presence of heavy bias. If it has covered a couple of stories featuring women victims, and not a flimsy and unfocused love story covered with violence with no clear purpose, it could have been a very good movie. Like this, it is weakly executed, fails to deliver focus and strong clear message and is very irresponsible.
After watching this movie, all that I can say is that Angelina should not try to direct again. The movie is bad on so many levels, but it's the directing that clearly failed the most.
First, the few positives about the movie. Casting is solid, actors do a decent job even with the awful script they had, but they clearly struggle to act in English. Camera work is solid, every now and then we see an interesting shot.
Now, the negatives that are too many to number. The script is god damn awful, many times it makes no sense at all. It's trying to portray complexities of the main characters, but does it in a horribly cheesy and uninspiring way. Making this kind of war drama that braids the story of few characters with the broader context of war is very hard, but when done successfully, it has resulted in some of the world's most memorable movies. This is not one of them. It starts with a good idea, but then it fails in so many ways. First, it is horribly historically inaccurate and I don't mean just in the way that Serbs are wearing Hungarian throwback uniforms (because Bosnian authorities angered with insulting script have kicked the Angelina's crew out of Bosnia and the movie had to be shot in Hungary) or the wrong color of Yugoslavian passports, or the wrong weaponry which is used the wrong way, or the wrong number of reported war victims mentioned in the movie, etc. Movie manages to go into whole new, almost metaphysical level of historical inaccuracy. For instance, every Serb that we see in the movie (that we know is a Serb) wears a uniform. There is not a single Serb civilian in the whole movie. Even at the start, when two main characters go on a date, the Serb is wearing his police uniform. My god Angelina, do you know that policeman are not allowed to wear uniforms off duty? And what cop would want to go on a date wearing his beat uniform? Somewhere around the half movie finally manages to pick up a little and establish some sort of narrative flow, which is why I won't give it 1/10. But even that little good about it gets ruined by the end. Since this was supposed to be a spin on the old Romeo and Juliette tale, it made a lot of sense to finish the story in the similar way, but no, Angelina opted for the least logical ending possible.
I am from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and fortunately, do not consider myself as belonging to any of the 'sides.' However, I can tell from here that this movie stirred a lot of controversy before it had been even finished. It is ridiculous that Mrs Jolie expected that it would bring any catharsis in such divided environment where literally everything is used for political manipulation – it rather gave a fuel to new controversies and divisions – depending from which 'side' it was looked at. However, I agree that some taboo topics need to be talked about. Yet, I found this movie being surprisingly poorly done – a bad screenplay, shaky directing and the artists who did not seem to believe what they are doing. One of the most awkward thing was the way they talked in their (our) native language – it was clearly translated from English, so these people seemed to be unnatural and they sounded awkward, aside from some shy attempts of improvisations. No doubt that the director had most honorable intentions and desires, but I did not find what this movie was about in the end.