Les Vivants et les Morts

A great movie that deserves more attention.

This is a war drama that intertwines two stories - one from the 1993 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the other that takes place in the same place but in 1943.

Somewhere in Bosnia in 1993, a group of HVO soldiers was assigned to hold one of the most important positions towards the Serbian forces, in the hills near the hunting barracks.

But on the same evening, after arriving at the position, a Croat-Muslim conflict breaks out behind them, leaving them cut off from their comrades. Then they have to sneak through Serbian and Muslim positions to get to salvation - Black Water.

The film is brilliantly directed, the action scenes are great and the film is truly visually impressive. Sound is an extremely important component in the film and here the director used it brilliantly.

Anyone who has heard live rifle shots, and especially rifles such as those used in the Croatian War of Independence (Homeland War), knows that the sounds in this film are truly realistic.

The atmosphere is sinister and the tension intensifies with each passing moment, and the characters are interesting. Everything in the film has a purpose and everything makes sense in the end.

The film was shot on locations in the municipalities of Uskoplje and Prozor-Rama, and a small part in Zagreb.

An interesting, atmospheric and visually impressive film.

This movie is phenomenal, and, dare I say, the best Croatian war movie ever filmed since it's independence. Croatia has gone through a rough cultural period after the war. Some of it's films were either politically indoctrinated, or just simply bad, but be it as it may, Croatias filmmakers lost respect that they once held as a part of the Yugoslavian film makers. Little by little, people just discarded all Croatian on celluloid as "bad", and would rather indulge in an afternoon Holywoodly brainwash, in opposition to searching for the "needle in the stack of hay" of the Croatian movie. Needless to say, this movie brings it all home. Superb script and out of this world directing, followed by some tremendously good acting by Filip Sovagovic and Velibor Topic just might bring back our faith in the Croatian cinematography. Little mistakes in the casting were visible (the Ustase commanders were terrible), but still, this movie deserves nothing less of a pure

9/10

I believe Mila's review is politically charged and don't fit to this movie. I've seen it and it is one of the best movies I've seen about ex-Yugoslavian wars. It makes out the point that there is no way to escape these wars. It's a circle killing everybody at the end. It goes on for centuries. The way war is depicted is so realistic, the director, Milic, has been himself in the war. There is no single woman in the screen, because it is a war movie, and no romance can fit in. All the craziness of the war is there, driving those soldiers mad. The craft of doing that movie is amazing. No wonder why Croatian school of film is probably the best in the Balkans. If you can, go see that movie. And you wan't need to see any other war movie in your life.

I tend to completely agree with ot_lowrider from Serbia, this movie doesn't really make much sense. Yes, it is an anti-war movie, and yes some of the atmosphere is rather realistic, but that is not nearly enough to redeem the grossly lacking script. There is no story, no sense whatsoever in what is happening (I understand that is exactly the point the movie was trying to make, but I find it is not nearly enough).

To make things worse, somewhere half way into the movie, the filmmakers insert some sort of supernatural powers into the happenings which makes this film ridiculous at times. What do ghosts have to do with what was supposed to be a realistic anti-war movie? Give me a break!

I saw this film at the 2007 Sarajevo Film Festival. It shows the parallels between the Bosnian war and the partisan struggle of World War Two. Especially poignant scenes are numerous. For example, when the patrol has killed everyone at an outpost they've come across. A member of the patrol remarks that one of the dead they killed went to school with him. At another point, the patrol look across a field and see the campfires of the long-dead World War Two partisans -- or was it fire eating the souls of the dead, as described in the Koran? Double entendre. The final scene has the departed soldiers standing together, the dead partisans from World War Two and the dead member of the patrol in the Bosnian War, standing together in the graveyard. This movie is a masterpiece of design and of photography.