A Very Dark and Controversial Movie

Rating: 7/10 (25 February 2012)

THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY is stirring a lot of controversy, both bad and good. This is actress Angelina Jolie's first outing as writer/director of a film and for many reasons she deserves applause for tackling such a subject as the Balkan War from 1992 - 1995. Unless the viewer has studied the conditions in the once Yugoslavia, a bit of history may help the view to understand the conflict. 'In 1992, conflict engulfed Bosnia and Herzegovina. The war was predominantly a territorial conflict between local Bosniaks and Croats backed by Zagreb, and Serbs backed by the Yugoslav People's Army and Serbia. The Yugoslav armed forces had disintegrated into a largely Serb-dominated military force. Opposed to the Bosnian-majority led government's agenda for independence, and along with other armed nationalist Serb militant forces, the JNA attempted to prevent Bosnian citizens from voting in the 1992 referendum on independence. This did not succeed in persuading people not to vote and instead the intimidating atmosphere combined with a Serb boycott of the vote resulted in a resounding 99% vote in support for independence. On 19 June 1992, the war in Bosnia broke out. The conflict, typified by the siege of Sarajevo and Srebrenica, was by far the bloodiest and most widely covered of the Yugoslav wars. Bosnia's Serb faction led by ultra-nationalist Radovan Karadzi promised independence for all Serb areas of Bosnia from the majority- Bosniak government of Bosnia. To link the disjointed parts of territories populated by Serbs and areas claimed by Serbs, Karadzic pursued an agenda of systematic ethnic cleansing primarily against Bosnians through genocide and forced removal of Bosniak populations. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the United States reported in April 1995 that 90 percent of all the atrocities in the Yugoslav wars up to that point had been committed by Serb militants. Most of these atrocities occurred in Bosnia. In 1994 the US brokered peace between Croatian forces and the Bosnian Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the successful Flash and Storm operations, the Croatian Army and the combined Bosnian and Croat forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, conducted an operation codenamed Operation Maestral to push back Bosnian Serb military gains.Together with NATO air strikes on the Bosnian Serbs, the successes on the ground put pressure on the Serbs to come to the negotiating table. The fighting in Croatia ended in mid-1995, after Operation Flash and Operation Storm. At the end of these operations, Croatia had managed to reclaim all of its territory except the UNPA Sector East bordering Serbia, however most of the Serbian population in these areas had become refugees, and these operations have led to war crimes indictments by the ICTY against elements of the Croat military leadership. The areas uncaptured by the Croations forces in "Sector East" came under UN administration (UNTAES), and were reintegrated to Croatia in 1998. The war ended with the signing of the Dayton Agreement on the 14 December 1995, with the formation of Republika Srpska as an entity within Bosnia and Herzegovina being the resolution for Bosnian Serb demands.
From this background Jolie has fashioned a story that relates a strange love story that is difficult to define. Danijel (Goran Kosti) and Ajla (Zana Marjanovi), rare in a dance hall when the explosive war begins Danijel is a a Serbian policeman, becomes a captain, and Muslim artist Ajla becomes a captive. When Ajla ends up in Danijel's camp, he attempts to protect her without attracting undue attention, so she serves the men meals, but the threat of rape is ever present. Danijel's father Nebojsa (Rade ÂŠerbedzija) is the general of the Serbs and discovers that his son is hiding a Muslim woman, discovers her, has her tortured, and condemns his son. Lack of trust between the 'lovers' leads to a tumultuous end.
The script is slow, the movement slower, but the impact of the bestiality of war, once again based on religion, demonstrates how cruel people can become when it is Serbs against Muslims, even when the individuals are lovers. The point is made, perhaps too repeatedly, but Jolie has assembled a fine cast and manages to give us as raw a picture of war and the camps always associated with the captured ones as can be shown on the screen. It is a necessary subject to examine: t is not an easy film to watch. Why is it controversial? The answer lies in why is war controversial - who 'wins' when all lose?
Grady Harp