There is true tragic power in this almost unbearably brutal and shocking film by writer and director Jasmila Žbanić about the 1995 Srebrenica massacre during the Bosnian war, in which more than 8,000 unarmed Bosnian Muslims housed in a so-called UN “safe area” were slaughtered: the greatest civil atrocity in Europe since the second world war. Dutch UN peacekeepers in light blue helmets failed to stop Bosnian Serb forces from invading their compound – undisciplined, exalted with the brutal thrill of the conquest, paranoid about the combatants supposedly hidden among civilian refugees and simply seething with hatred ethnic.
Jasna Đuričić plays Aida, a teacher who became a translator who is hired by the UN to interpret the discussions between Bosnian Muslim leaders and UN officials, while Srebrenica falls into the hands of Serbian forces. Her husband Nihad (Izudin Bajrović) is a director, and they feel that their military-age children Hamdija (Boris Ler) and Sejo (Dino Bajrović) are now in great danger of reprisals from the victorious Serbian army. As they huddle in the deactivated battery factory under the alleged protection of the UN with thousands of other terrified souls, and thousands more outside, with chaos, misery and panic growing, Aida runs frantically trying to get information. She realizes that the pathetic UN commander Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh) can do nothing in the face of the murderous assailants led by the notorious war criminal Ratko Mladić, played with Boris Isaković’s presumptuous and terribly plausible contempt, announcing his determination smoothly and ambiguously not to hurt “innocent” people and distribute Toblerone bars to shaking children.
As an interpreter, Aida is effectively the liaison or intermediary for the drama between the different constituents: with her license to wander, she can take the audience to Serbs, Dutch UN officials and civilians. Often, the camera is chasing after Aida as she walks desperately, demanding that the UN do something or at least protect her family. Đuričić’s face is agonizingly marked with his own horror and disbelief; she seems to age 20 years in the course of the drama.
There is an extraordinary moment when, in the midst of all fear and boredom and restricted conditions, she sees two young men kissing and begins to laugh – overwhelmed, perhaps, with the evidence that life and humanity continue, or perhaps with glorious but vulnerable innocence of youth. Perhaps the kissing couple thinks that everything will be fine and a flashback gives us the youth of Aida, participating in a drunk “beauty contest” in a bar, in the days when Serbs, Muslims and Croats were still friends and neighbors. There are painful moments when Aida recognizes her alumni now in Serbian uniform, pushing her at gunpoint.
An earlier 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 last film seemed to me an incredibly brilliant and convincing attempt to face this shameful atrocity head on: shameful for the UN, the European Union and all the leaders of the Western world who were reluctant to intervene – perhaps because of the totemic word ” Sarajevo ”made them fear a new world war. Perhaps in their hearts, too, they thought that military intervention was fine in the Middle East, but not in Europe.
In any case, the Srebrenica massacre undoubtedly galvanized NATO forces against Mladic. As for the title, it is taken from the apocryphal Christian tradition that Peter found the risen Christ outside Rome and asked him: “Quo vadis?” – “Where are you going?” – and the answer was: to Rome, to be crucified again. Aida herself is crucified twice, once during the massacre and again later, when she begins to recognize certain people in the community to which she has returned. After 25 years, the time has come to look again at the horror of Srebrenica, and Zbanic has done so with insightful candor and compassion.
• Quo Vadis, Aida? is available at Curzon Home Cinema from January 22nd.