Read the review of “In the land of blood and honey”

Angelina Jolie is doing a movie on Bosnian war – it’s official now and it will star Rade Serbedzija together with possibly other actors from the region. While the plot is still unclear, it should revolve around a “love story” between a Bosnian Muslim woman and a Bosnian Serb soldier. In Serbia, the movie-to-be is already causing controversy because of the ever-so-touchy subject of Serbian involvement in Bosnian war. Angelina is supposedly planning to visit Belgrade in the near future but the readers’ comments on Serbian news sites mostly say she is not welcome because the movie she plans to direct will be “anti-Serbian”.

Update: Trailer for Angelina’s movie “Land of Blood and Honey” (U zemlji krvi i meda)

I could maybe tell how I feel about this if I could concentrate enough on the trailer without getting distracted by the ridiculous Serbian-English accent.

Which actually brings us to an interesting topic – anti-Serb propaganda in movies.

List of “anti-Serb” movies

UPDATE: November 2011. John Travolta and Robert De Niro star in a new movie, “Killing Season” where Travolta will play Serbian army veteran trying to kill De Niro in some mountains for an unknown reason. Trailer is not out yet.

I have to start with the Expendables because I just saw it couple of days ago, so it’s the freshest one. Even though anti-Serb sentiment is stated in a single sentence by Mickey Rourke, “when we were in Bosnia, fighting those bad Serbs”, it was enough to provoke enormous booing from the audience and even a half-filled plastic coke glass being thrown at the movie screen (or maybe it was fanta).

Most famous example is probably The Peacemaker with Clooney and Kidman. Bosnian Serb is trying to blow up the UN building in New York. With a nuclear bomb. Alas, he fails at the last second. I remember also the audience was cheering for the bad guy, and let out a sigh of disappointment when the bomb failed to explode. The Serbian guy in the movie was played by a Croatian Romanian actor (thanks for the correction, Bogdan).

Savior with Dennis Quade is the least hated of all “anti-Serb” movies in Serbia, because it shows other sides comitting war crimes, not just the Serbian. The Croatian forces were played by Serbian actors.

Welcome to Sarajevo with Woody Harrelson also comes to mind, where one of the main focuses of the film is the Serbian bombing of Sarajevo. The movie was based on the book Natasha’s story, only in the movie the character of Bosnian Serb orphan girl Natasha is changed to Bosnian Muslim orphan girl Emira. The Bosnian guy in the movie was played by a Croatian actor.

Note the similarity between the guy on the picture and Niko Belic?

Behind Enemy Lines with Owen Wilson is maybe the least known, probably because it’s a very bad movie – even the guy who was the inspiration for the main role complained about how the movie turned out. It was based on a true story of an American pilot who needs to escape from the Serb territory and the Serbian soldiers after his plane is shot down. The Ratko Mladic character in the movie was played by a Polish actor, while a Serbian sniper was played by a Russian.

Did I forget some movie of the sorts? Let me know in the comments and I will add it to the list.

The Effect

I don’t think the producers think so much about who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy in the movie. Also, I don’t believe their primary motive is to turn the world’s attention to the suffering of victims. Their main concern is the money the movie’s gonna make. In other words – if only a part of the money all these movies made was invested in Bosnia, that state would perhaps be less messed up than it is today.

But you have to have a bad guy in the movie. It’s nothing personal.