Much ado about nothing, or some better films about war

Rating: 5/10 (5 September 2012)

This has to be the first time that I see a film just because of the controversy it has incited here on IMDb... and, well, having seen it, I'm wondering: What is all the commotion about? This has all the faults one could expect from an outsider's view. I understand how annoying this must be, but in all its naivety, I find 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' rather too insubstantial to merit concern. After all, there are lots of films from ex-Yugoslavia which deal with the war in a more sophisticated way and have a lot more punch...
'Grbavica' AKA 'Esma's Secret' (2006) dealt with the topic of war rape in a sensitive, understandable and yet unsettling way - and it didn't even pass a blame, it just described a woman's specific story. Jolie's mistake is to try to show rape in all of its brutality, which is highly disrespectful of women who have undergone such a trauma. A more skilled director would have avoided to show the actual fact and leave it to the viewer's imagination - the barrel of a gun is more menacing to see than the bullet in the head.
'Cabaret Balkan' (1998) was a random sequence of episodes happening during one night in Belgrade, with the war never being shown but in a constant, overshadowing presence affecting the lives of all characters. With the stories being so short, the characters' problems had to be interpreted by the viewer. The result was emotional confusion and the realization that there is much to the war that outsiders cannot understand. Jolie's mistake is to focus on one story between two characters, which allows the viewer to find them more and more unconvincing, and dismiss the story.
'Pretty Village Pretty Flame' (1996) dealt with the madness of war between brothers on the terrain of their childhood, and managed to portray all sides in equally disturbing characters. While made in Yugoslavia, it didn't take a one-sided jab at the other war party. Right until the infernal finale, everyone - including a Western journalist - gets to share the blame. Jolie's mistake is to take sides in an ongoing conflict where reconciliation is essential. It's like making a film about the West Bank in which all Israeli soldiers are ruthless killers, or all Palestinians terrorists in disguise. It adds oil to a fire which needs to be extinguished.
'Incendies' (2010) dealt with the personal aftermath of civil war in the guise of a highly stylized personal tale - while avoiding to mention that the country in question was Lebanon. It's a masterpiece because when you watch it, you don't think about war, you think about the leading woman's story, which is so terrible that it gives you a much better understanding of the terror of war than the sight of pillaging and bloodshed. Jolie's mistake was to choose the specific setting of the Yugoslavia war, instead of keeping the location open. She should have shot this with English actors, dealing with a conflict in an imaginary country. That would have been less offensive, and the numerous historical inaccuracies would not have mattered that way.
Still, I cannot dismiss this film completely even though it's a failure in many ways. For any movie which inspires so much ire, and therefore prompts so much discussion, achieves its goal by a different path. In a way, it's a good thing that 'In the Land of Blood and Honey' is so bad, because you have to think about WHY it is so bad. And, who knows, maybe it's all intentional, and Jolie in some crazy, artistically suicidal way never intended to pull off a masterpiece, but to have her efforts ripped to pieces as it has indeed been done.