Despite the genocide that occurs, involving the murder of thousands of Bosnians, the Western media services, and indeed their respective governments seem alarmingly disinterested. One character wryly notes the fact that a particularly bloody massacre of Sarajevans has been replaced as lead story by the separation of the Duke and Duchess of York. The vagaries of wealth and status and beauty clearly motivate the networks, and the situation in Sarajevo is ugly, messy and too complex for bite-sized bulletins. They become truly the forgotten people. Even Henderson s efforts to persist with the orphanage story meets opposition from the sympathetic Jane, who knows that for them to do anything worthwhile, they must keep filming more and more graphic footage to gain the attention of the West.
Orphans are fine for a day but after that it becomes an indulgence they can t afford.
This is war presented as entertainment, not as information, not as a call for assistance. This is a film that exemplifies Noam Chomsky s model of unworthy victims the Western world gains nothing by assisting them, so they simply let them die. And this condemnation of the media and Western leaders is presented in a fascinating, innovative manner. World leaders in real archival footage offer inane mealy mouthed platitudes seconds after we witness carnage on the streets of Sarajevo. The war is dismissed as merely the fourteenth most important conflict in the world there are thirteen ahead of the Bosnian situation that are considered far more pressing and worthy of the world s attention.