• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Dec 24, 2011 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

It’s not that the amateurish directing is at fault in In the Land of Blood and Honey, Angelina Jolie’s debut as a writer/director: it borders on competent. But her atrocious script and misguided approach to the subject matter render the film odious. Choosing to film in the Serbo-Croatian language does little to cover up characters that are nothing more than broad, flat stereotypes. We then get to watch these stereotypes rape other stereotypes, throw their babies out windows, or shoot other innocent stereotypes in the face in front of terrified onlookers. This is a brutal movie, full of very graphic killings and sexual assaults, none of which make it a better movie.

Touted as a Romeo and Juliet story set against the backdrop of the Bosnian war, there’s just so much about the film that feels offensive, gratuitous, or just plain wrong: whether it’s the very premise of the relationship between a Muslim woman, Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and her Serbian captor Danijel (Goran Kostic), or that their meeting occurs during an attempted rape; or that the male romantic lead (call him what you may) continues with business as usual at the prison camp he helps run because of what seems to boil down to daddy issues.

Jolie’s intents in portraying this relationship are baffling at best. Whether he’s sneaking her out of the prison cell for a roll in the hay, chaining her to his bed or keeping her locked away in his private chamber for months on end, it’s confusing just what we’re supposed to feel. Is this supposed to be seen as romantic? Kinky? Shocking? Are any of those appropriate, given the real-world horrors of the setting?

Yes, absolutely terrible, unspeakably inhumane acts occurred in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the war, but better accounts have already been written. Some defenders of the film will doubtlessly spin Jolie’s directorial debut as a heroic effort to expose these atrocities; what a sorry state we’re living in if a gossip rag starlet’s international vanity project really is the thing shedding a light on these war crimes nearly two decades after the fact. It’s possible that Jolie might have had the best of intentions in mind when making this, but accidental or not, it just feels disgustingly exploitative. (www.inthelandofbloodandhoney.com)

Author rating: 1/10