Nobody is saying that terrible things can’t be portrayed on the screen, or that horrible events in history don’t deserve light shed on them. But sometimes the way it’s done isn’t quite the right approach.
In the Land of Blood and Honey is the screenwriting and directorial debut of actress Angelina Jolie, set in the early 90’s in Sarajevo amidst the horrors of the Bosnian War. Two young folks meet each other before the war, a Serbian policeman named Danijel (Goran Kostic) and a Muslim painter named Ajla (Zana Marjanovic). But when battle begins to sweep over the country, Danijel is pressed into service under his father, a General, played by Rade Serbedzija (X-Men:First Class, Snatch) and Ajla becomes a captive along with many other Muslim girls. But Danijel happens to be stationed in the camp where Ajla is forced into servitude, and does his best to protect her while not entirely sure of the war himself.
As more and more horrors are thrown at the audience, the slow love story drags on between Danijel and Ajla. It’s a classic “We’re From Two Different Worlds” story type, albeit with a closer connection to the hatred of families behind Romeo and Juliet. The acrimony between Serbs and Muslims goes back centuries — it’s nothing new, but this time the Serbian soldiers are shown as the villains. Danijel must choose between love and duty, or perhaps none at all, and Ajla faces the possibility of tentative safety with a murderer or dangerous freedom on the run.
This movie is quite long, at 127 minutes, and doesn’t really need to be that length. Several interactions and scenes are essentially repeated that could have been fixed with some decent editing of the screenplay. At times the Serbian characters are played as very caricatured, without any depth or understanding of context or emotion. Rade Serbedzija is great as always, although he doesn’t get much to do even with a bloated film. Otherwise, the acting works well, with the native actors putting in strong performances across the board.
Although the actual horrors of the war are something that deserve to be shown, the underlying and pervasive love story overwhelms the real life history at times. It’s a difficult and dark movie to watch, but it’s illustrative and educational in its own way. Let’s hope Angelina Jolie’s next movie utilizes the same passion but drops the unnecessary weight.
Clacked by Jeremy Fogelman 
on Jan 13, 2012 @ 08:00 EST5EDT
