This movie depressed me too, but because it totally degraded my ethnic backgound. I live in America and when people ask me what my nationality is I first say Yugoslavian, they say huh? Then I say ok, Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, etc... ring a bell? they go, Siberian? Isn't it cold there? Ok, haven't you heard of Kosovo, Bosnia and Serbia? Places the U.S. has been involved in for over a decade? They go, hmmmmm I know Iraq and Afghanistan, are you middle eastern? Finally, I say ok, north of Greece, south of Austria, and they go ooooooooooh cool, but the confused looks on their faces tell me they still have no idea what I'm talking about. And then when they talk to other people about me, they refer to me as "that Russian guy."
I love America and it always will be my first home, but the ignorance of the American people toward the Balkans is always in my face, and that is why this movie depresses me.
This movie is from the point of view of American journalists, who like many, many other Americans, have no knowledge whatsoever about Yugoslav history, custom or culture.
One part in the movie, Adrain Brody says "Serbs, Catholics, Croats, Orthodox, there all insane.....This place is.. No one knows that this place is." This is a total reflection of the ignorance of many western journalists during the war. During the war and even now, journalists often reported "ancient ethnic rivalries" and "traditions of nationalist hysteria" between the Serbs and the Croats. Hell, even in the movie when they're still in New York watching a report about the war they refer to the it as "tribal feuds". That right there makes the south slavic people seem primitive and crude.
The journalists during the war, along with this film, have failed to expose the truth behind the war. First of all, there is nothing "ancient" about conflict between the Serbs and Croats. The only time Serbs and Croats have ever fought each other as separate nations was in the 20th century, and only on two occasions.
Secondly, there is no "traditions of nationalist hysteria" in either Croatia or Serbia. Both nations are younger than most European countries as they were occupied by two different empires for hundreds of years, the Ottoman and the Austro-Hungarian. In fact, not too long before these two nations became independent from their empirical rulers, they considered each other slavic brothers.
It just shows how the west looks down on the south slavic people in general. While France and Germany and France and England have had conflicts over the course of centuries, they are not labeled as ancient enemies, but the Serbs and Croats fight each other on a few occasions in modern times and they are suddenly ancient rival tribes. When a viewer watching the news hears something like "tribe" they automatically think of the people as barbaric, and that is what this movie exacerbates: You see a Croat military camp with a pile of dead serb civilians just sitting there rotting away next to all the soldiers, and you see Serbs shooting old ladies and blowing up kids.
That is it, according to this film and the journalists it represents, that is the extent of the Serbian and Croatian people. We're all mindless barbarians that drink each others blood as we have apparently done for thousands of years. We are less civilized than the western europeans because they can have muslims and catholics and jews and orthodox and what have you all live together peacefully, but we can't. Woops, let's not talk about the Holocaust or the Spanish inquisition or the crusades, for it must have been serbian or croatian kings and queens ruling at those times.....
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