Grbavica Reviews

To be honest, I had never heard of this movie before but since it won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film festival, I thought I should give it a try. Basically, it is a rather slow but really heartbreaking movie about ex-Yougoslavia after the war. Thanks or because of this movie (depends where you stand in this matter), you get a glimpse on the terrible things that happened out there. Especially from an outsider like me, it remains rather strange that for decades all those different cultures seemed to get along fine but then, with the fall of Communism, they decided to literally slaughter their next door neighbor. Concerning the directing, it was nothing really amazing but I liked that it was really sober and it fit the subject really well so it was really effective and the actors were very good. Basically, there is not much action here or anything else going on but it is not what this movie was about, it was more about the characters and the traumas they have to deal with until the end of their life. To conclude, even though the whole thing was pretty depressing, I still think it was a solid drama and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in this dark part of history.