Emotionally Erratic

Rating: 3/10 (29 February 2012)

I'm honestly quite disappointed in Angelina Jolie. I've seen all of her interviews she has given about In the Land of Blood and Honey, and her main goal was to highlight the human emotions caused by war. If this is was the human emotions she was talking about, then I think she needs to experience a war herself.
First off, the scene in the beginning seemed rather awkward than romantic. Their body language are not in rhythm. They are suppose to be engaging, flirting with their eyes. It almost seems as if they were waiting for the explosion to occur.
When Ajla get chosen to go to the rape camps, there is not enough resistance,panic or emotions between Ajla or her sister. It just seemed too swift. Then when Ajla witnesses a man getting randomly shot on their way to the rape camp, she just seemed to indifferent. I th The only scene that really got me was when Danjiel was watching another Serbian soldier step on Ajla's hand. The way she looks up in pain, but remains silent in order to be obeident was incredible. Then when the scene changes to her hugging Danjiel as her hand is in pain, you can feel the hurt between both Ajla and Danjiel.
The moment where Ajla's sister comes to the house to only find out her baby was thrown out the window was one of the two scenes that was extremely inconsistent with natural emotions. When you see the woman on the floor crying as Ajla's sister asks her where her baby is, you begin to get scared and anticipate what's going to happen next. Then as Ajla's sister slowly approaches the balcony, you heart begins to beat fast! Then as she looks over, you expect to hear a scream somewhere but you don't. She just covers her mouth. Now, to be fair, let's say that she's in a state of shock. So then after she discovers her baby has been thrown out, she doesn't run out the door, SHE WALKS! Then when she finally gets downstairs and holds her baby, she just holds the baby with her mouth open in silence for about 30 seconds, then! finally lets out a cry. I felt totally robbed of human emotions in that scene. It was like I was more shocked and sad the baby was dead than the mother in the film! The second terrible scene was when Danijel ties up Ajla on the bed after listening to his father tell him that Ajla is not to be trusted. When he comes back in with a gun, you can already feel the chills of the scene. As he sits next to her, he cries and contemplates on whether Ajla is his lover or enemy. Now this scene is really good, up until a point at least. After Danijel contemplates, he then proceeds to stand up and looks at her, kinda standing over her. At this point, you are holding your breath thinking like "Is he going to kill her? Or maybe not?" Then all of a sudden Ajla kisses him, in an attempt to convince him to spare her life. Then he leans in to slowly kiss her, at this point, you're still curling your toes because you don't know what might happen. But all of a sudden, the scene changes to Ajla and Danjiel having sex, and then the scene changes to a different part. It seemed as if Angelina just thought the sex would explain that he decided not to kill her, but it was very unfit for the scene and it just seemed cheap and lacking any artistic depth.
In the movie, Ajla seemed a bit too indifferent to some of the most traumatic scenes in the film, and I think Anjelina made her character too strong. Realistically, there should have been more emotional torture inside of Ajla, thus making her cry a litte more and not only when Danjiel abuses her, and when she discovers that her nephew died.
Overall, the storyline did not help to inform people about the devastation of the Bosnian War because the love story steered me away from the factual events of the war. Reading the notecards in the end was the most effective when informing people about the war. The ending was disappointing and dull, and I hope next time, Angelina takes notes from movies like Schindler's List. That way, when she films her movie about Afghanistan, she'll know how to successfully incorporate facts about historical events, with her storyline.