As If I Am Not There

Incredible Movie claims that the movie doesn't lay blame on any side in the war and that women were raped on all sides. This is ludicrous because it's obvious that Bosniak women in the movie were violated by the Serb militants. International commissions have established that most of the 12,000-50,000 women raped between 1992 and 1995 were Bosniak as a way of genocide by other means. The rapes of Serbian and Croatian women, as horrible as they are, occurred as instances of war crimes, not as part of Bosniaks' genocidal program of genetic transformation and intimidation.

Anyone interested in the facts of the rape issue in BiH should consult Wikipedia's article on the subject.

I cannot explain my discomfort in watching this film. It is most definitely not for the faint of heart. However, it delves into a topic that is so important and yet so ignored. Throughout the film there is very little dialogue, the majority of the story is told through the face of the talented and powerful protagonist. The plot of the film is bleak and painful, but provides a real sense of the hell which hundreds of Bosniak women experienced during their internment in the Bosnian War. This film does not shy away from the torture and abuse the women faced, but it shows their strength in maintaining any dignity they could through the gruesome process. I think the director handled the topic with grace and created a movie that is both haunting and substantial, but I do wish that the film would have shown the struggles of Serb and Croat women who were also assaulted in large numbers during this time.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Samira (Natasa Petrovic) is a young teacher from Sarajevo who takes a teaching job in a small village as the Bosnian war hots up. One day, as she is taking her class, she finds everyone being rounded up by Serbian soldiers and, while she protests she is merely there to work, she nevertheless finds herself rounded up with the women. From this point on, she finds her dignity and human rights ripped to shreds, as she is subjected to the most degrading treatment imaginable as a sex object, but, to save herself and the other women, she finds the inner strength and resilience inside to rise up and be counted as a person.

It's a sad fact that sometimes the most affecting, heart wrenching stories involve being told the most unpleasant, disturbing ones, in order to feel their full impact. This is certainly the case with As If I Am Not There, which delves into the terrain of the Bosnian war in the early 90s. It's perversely fitting that it was not a widely seen film, because it holds little in the way of actual entertainment value...in fact, it's probably the furthest thing from entertaining you can imagine. In fact, sometimes you just feel like a sick person for watching it. But, as unflinching and terrible as some of the treatment is to watch, you have to see it in order to appreciate just what sort of hell went on.

But the strong acting and writing make it into a worth seeing film, even if it is one of the more disturbing ones you'll watch. ****

A poignant haunting look at the Bosnian War and the atrocities committed. The film focuses on a young Bosniak girl who winds up at a Serbian War Camp. From here a story of the worst of humanity and the strength that lies within people to endure unspeakable hardship unfolds. The actress who plays the lead character Samira gives one of the best performances I have ever seen on film and says more with her eyes than other actress can say with pages of dialogue. The director does a phenomenal job of capturing the horror or war and more importantly does not use sensationalist tactics to solicit emotional responses from the audience. The story itself and the performances from the actors are powerful enough where they can stand alone.

A film that will likely fly under the radar - but an important one to see; as it acknowledges one of the saddest moments in recent history.

Quite a dreary choice of material - in keeping with the director's earlier work: a film about wheelchair-bound cerebral palsy sufferers (producer); the aftermath of the Chernobyl disaster (short); and now this, a film about the Serbian sex-camps during the Bosnian war. Possibly a cynical mind at work here, choosing material that is sure to garner liberal, politically correct attention.

The fact that this is Juanita Wilson's second film shot in a language other than her own suggests a fear on the director's part, or rather an acknowledgment of an inability to grapple with speech and all the dramatic possibilities involved in dialogue. Likewise this film's extremely laconic nature excludes so much about the central character and her relationships, her survival instinct, that might potentially have been explored and clarified. The film unfolds in a series of almost mute scenes that appear to lay claim to documentary significance. It all seems lazy and earnest; and no matter that there are moments of dread, small points of freighted resonance, minor visual notes, this does not make for a satisfactory cinematic experience.

As for the heroine - why she made no attempt to conceal herself from the enemy, or better again to flee from danger, is a mystery compounded by her entering into a relationship with the chief of her captors. This morbid fantasy of imprisonment, of Stockholm Syndrome embraced, seems a minor trope (cf Emma Donoghue's novel "Room" - again a cynically opportunist choice of subject) without originality or resonance.

To hide behind one's joyless subject matter, in a calculated attempt at rendering one's work, one's sensibility and aesthetic, unassailable, is a product of dubious self-regard. The film titles which Ms Wilson is connected with "Inside I'm Dancing" and "As If I Am Not There" signal an unease with herself and her place in the world. If she had been bold enough or rather contrary enough to question the political verities of the Yugoslavian conflicts then we might be in a better position to judge her abilities. Going on the work here presented we struggle to come to terms with an anxiously anodyne outlook. Perhaps next time if she has the stomach or the wit or imagination for it she might attend to contemporary Ireland rather than run off and take shelter behind another nation's traumas.