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There are obviously reasons not to like this movie: woman director (wrong gender); portrayal of gender in war (not romantic or boys’ club-y); both its ambiguity and its moral stance (normally we try to go for one or the other—or better yet, neither!); its portrayal of a lesser known region (you could have made it about Italy instead!) by an outsider (you mean her parents aren’t FROM the former Yugoslavia? You mean artists can care about—Other People? But why, why? History is about being callous, right?).
Although those are the reasons I liked it, you know.
I also don’t think that it’s Serb-bashing (or West-bashing) in an unthinking, whining way, although it certainly doesn’t shy away from showing blood and coarseness and all the shit of war, you know. It does also show the Serb nationalist father and let him have his fifteen minutes of fame, and I think it’s good to let objectionable or whatever people have their fifteen minutes of fame.
I didn’t like the male lead by the end, and he was a Serb, although it has much more to do with him as a man—gender is a part of war—than anything else. It also has to do with something he said near the beginning, which at the time you assume he doesn’t mean, but which you realize by the end, that he kinda does.
But if he was broken, morally speaking, he was certainly placed under intolerable moral strain, you know.
…. And I know I didn’t talk about the girl, but it’s a great feminist film.
…. I guess you could say that the male lead is a ‘colorblind’ ‘racist’/ethnocentric, although it doesn’t seem quite “fair” to me, (O Lord), since plenty of us fit that description, and it doesn’t seem to end up for us like this, so sinned against, and so sinning, so sinning…. How could we be such sinners, out of such happy cloth?
I don’t like to rate things, you know. I probably shouldn’t even say these things, in a way.
