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THere is true tragic power in this almost unbearably brutal and shocking film by writer-director Jasmila Žbanić about the 1995 Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian War, in which more than 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims take refuge in a so-called United Nations ‘safe zone’ were slaughtered: the biggest civil atrocity in Europe since World War II. Dutch UN peacekeepers wearing powder-blue helmets had been unable to prevent Bosnian Serb forces from rushing into their compound – unruly, driven by the brutal thrill of conquest, paranoid about fighters supposedly hidden among civilian refugees and simply bubbling over with ethnic hatred.
Jasna Đuričić plays Aida, a schoolteacher-turned-translator employed by the UN to interpret discussions between Bosnian Muslim leaders and UN officials as Srebrenica falls to Serbian forces. Her husband Nihad (Izudin Bajrović) is a school principal and they feel that their military-aged sons Hamdija (Boris Ler) and Sejo (Dino Bajrović) are now in great danger of reprisals from the victorious Serbian army. As they huddle in the disused battery factory under purported UN protection with thousands of other terrified souls, and thousands more outside, in chaos, misery and panic Growing up, Aida rushes in frantically trying to get information. She realizes that the pathetic UN Commander Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh) can do nothing in the face of the murderous intimidators led by the notorious war criminal Ratko Mladić, played with horribly plausible vanity and disdain by Boris Isaković, announcing without jerk and ambiguity his determination not to hurt “innocent” people and hand out Toblerone bars to trembling children.
As an interpreter, Aida is effectively the liaison or the intermediary of the drama between the different constituencies: with her wandering permit, she can take the public to the Serbs, the Dutch UN officers and civilians. The camera often runs behind Aida as she walks around desperately, demanding that the UN do something or at least protect her family. Đuričić’s face is terribly etched with his own horror and disbelief; she appears to be 20 years old during the drama.
There is an extraordinary moment when, in the midst of all the fear, boredom and cramped conditions, she sees two young people kissing and she starts to laugh – perhaps overwhelmed by this proof that the life and humanity continue, or perhaps by the glorious but vulnerable innocence of youth. Maybe the kissing couple thinks that everything will be fine, and a flashback gives us Aida’s youth, participating in a drunken “beauty pageant” in a bar, back when Serbs, Muslims and Croats were still friends and neighbors. There are heartbreaking moments when Aida recognizes former students of her now in Serbian uniform, pushing her at gunpoint.
A previous Žbanić film, Esma’s Secret: Grbavica, with a similar Bosnian theme, won the Golden Bear in Berlin in 2006, although I was less convinced. But his latest film struck me as a chillingly brilliant and extremely convincing attempt to tackle this shameful atrocity head-on: shameful for the UN, the European Union and all those leaders of the Western world who had hesitated to intervene – can -being because the totemic word “Sarajevo” made them fear a new world war. Perhaps they also believed in their hearts that a military intervention was going very well in the Middle East but not in Europe.
In any case, the Srebrenica massacre arguably galvanized NATO forces against Mladic. As for the title, it is taken from the apocryphal Christian tradition that Peter met the Risen Christ outside Rome and asked him: “Quo vadis? – “Where are you going?” – and the answer was: in Rome, to be crucified again. Aida herself is crucified twice, once during the massacre and again afterwards, as she begins to recognize some people in the community she has reintegrated. After 25 years, the time has come to revisit the horror of Srebrenica, and Zbanic did so with compassion and clear-eyed candor.
• Quo Vadis, Aida? is available on Curzon Home Cinema starting January 22.
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