But the movie, like Henderson, feels honor-bound to try to reach as many people as possible. Underneath this calculation lies a fury directed at media-lulled Western audiences, who'd rather hear about Fergie's divorce than the unpleasantries of ethnic cleansing. We will not negotiate with terrorists, states President George Bush of U.S. foreign policy. Cut to American diplomats at the table with Serbs. When the journalists spill from vans at the site of a massacre, the director freeze-frames them the moment they catch sight of the scene.
Some horrors make time stand still.
If the scripted scenes don't mesh seamlessly with the documentary footage, it's because the filmmakers realize there's something faintly obscene about daubing makeup on actors to match the wounds of butchered innocents. Needless to say, there's a price for saying things no one wants to hear. Henderson's stories get bumped from the lead slots. And Welcome to Sarajevo has been dumped without a whisper into the Hollywood 27 googolplex, where it will leave quietly Thursday. That it played at all is surprising.