Where do you go after war?
February 12-13, 2022
There are lessons for all when a civilisation is crushed, writes Nicholas Adams-Dzierzba
Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic couldn’t care less about not winning the 2021 Oscar for best international film. Because she was supposed to have died in 1992.
At the time she was 19 and living in Sarajevo during the ethnically motivated war between Bosnian Muslims and Serbs.
Speaking to Review over a video call from Berlin, Zbanic, 47, embodies a pragmatic positivity, something she shares with the main character of her film Quo Vadis, Aida?
While writing the script Zbanic visited the women who lived through the Srebrenica massacre, committed by the Bosnian Serb army under the command of Ratko Mladic in 1995.
These women returned to Srebrenica after being expelled, for years carrying a heavy burden – knowing their husbands and sons were buried in unmarked graves. She considers them living saints, because many of them now live side-by-side with neigh- bours who had persecuted them.
“Of course [they’re] seeking justice and looking for the bodies of their sons they want to bury. But there was no revenge, there was no language of hatred heard from them,” she says.
Although a fictional character, the film’s protagonist Aida (Jasna Djuricic) is a stoic amalgamation of the Srebrenica women. She’s a teacher and translator working for the United Nations as an interpreter at the time of the atrocity.
In opening scenes thousands of Serbian Muslims are massed around a UN com- pound seeking sanctuary. Believing the sys- tem is set up to protect them, Aida trusts in the Dutch UN peacekeepers. But she’s faced with a zero sum game as she tries to save her family. “She thought by having this badge of a UN employee, that she will be on the side of the privileged. For the UN, she was just another Bosnian. So she had to share the destiny of Bosnians,” Zbanic says.
The historical fact of the massacre may be well known to many viewers, but the plot plays out like a thriller with how it’s paced. The film’s editor Jaroslaw Kaminski, who cut Polish films Ida and Cold War, builds anxiety through slowing down scenes in between the action, like flashbacks to before the war, tense negotiations and waiting for the other shoe to drop. The film poses questions about our faith in institutions today.
Zbanic says just because the UN betrayed them, does not mean it should be disassembled; on the contrary, we should make our institutions stronger.
During the film’s pre- production there were no signs of the Covid-19 pandemic, but Zbanic compares the rise of the right wing in Bosnia to the US Congress insurrection in Washington D.C. “Twenty-six
years after the massacre I feel this was exactly how the war started in Bosnia. Luckily, Americans were smarter and didn’t go into civil war, but it was on the edge,” she says.
We now live in an unstable world, be- cause of this feeling of uncertainty, when people see this film they look deeper, and want to understand it in relation to their everyday life. Zbanic has a feeling people understand it better than before the pandemic, especially those in rich countries who were too comfortable. “I have the feel- ing that it resonates better with us now that our civilisation isn’t in good shape,” she says.
Zbanic has been engaged to direct episodes of the upcoming HBO miniseries The Last of Us, set in a post-pandemic world where survivors are brutal to one another. Along with the Bosnian’s bona fides, Rus- sian director Kantemir Balagov and Iranian director Ali Abba- si have been tapped by show- runner Craig Mazin, who previously wrote and produced Chernobyl. Each of them comes from a region that has seen conflict and civil strife. Zbanic agrees her perspective is definitely shaped by the understanding of how the world functions when it comes to the edge.
“That’s what Craig wanted. When we talked about it, he was very curious about my experience of living through war. And how emotional it looks. Of course, The Last of Us looks different, but the mood of people on the edge of the society is something that he really wanted to integrate in a very, very
sensible way,” she says. Asked whether the trauma of living through war haunts her, Zbanic says the experience is a feeling integrated in her body. “It’s like when you break your knee in a ski- ing accident, it stays all your life with you. It doesn’t always show, it doesn’t always hurt. But there are certain moments where you feel it. You always know it’s inside of you. I think a lot of everyday life is painted with the scar that I [acquired] during the war.”
It means she reacts very strongly to certain topics, like war portrayed in a propagandistic way, “It comes from this trauma that will, of course, never heal, but you go on with life.”
Zbanic feels privileged to be alive and making films, and sees light amid the dark. Earlier this year she was on the six director jury of Berlinale, where they discussed winners and awards.
Although she’d won the Golden Bear in 2006 with Grbavica, one of panel said to her, “Sorry you didn’t win this time” ... “And I was thinking, ‘Are you crazy? Sorry for what?’ I mean, I was supposed to die in 1992 and I’m here with you, having fun, with all these people seeing my film, it’s a moment of total pleasure. I didn’t feel sorry for one second ever. This changes your perspective [on] certain things. I take them seriously but you know life is more important than awards.”
Quo Vadis, Aida? is in cinemas from February 17.