Unfortunately, I have to say that after having read the article on this movie by James Berardinelli (a film critic I usually admire) I felt sick to my stomach. His article only goes to show how influential and far reaching well planned and executed state propaganda can be, and how misleading one can result in being when ignorant of historical facts.
First of all, Mr. Berardinelli should learn that Vukovar is not a town in Bosnia, but the 4th or 5th biggest city of Croatia, and that the happenings depicted in this movie are not part of the Bosnian war (which was started much later), but have transpired in 1991 at the very beginning of the Serbian war against Croatia, a country that had just been born and did not possess a military at the time, as a matter of fact did not possess any armed forces whatsoever other that the local police. So much as far as the bare facts are concerned. Bearing this in mind, the viewer will immediately see that most of the happenings depicted in this movie could not have happened, and if they had read up on this issue from any unbiased source, they would know that Vukovar was nothing less than a massacre of civilian population perpetrated by the then (still) Yugoslav army and Serb paramilitary forces.
As far as the movie is concerned, notwithstanding all of the above and the fact that it is essentially a lie, I did not even see any 'technically' appealing issues. I found everything to be way below par; the acting, the direction, the screenplay, cinematography, sound... Nothing was good. But somehow, the propaganda achieved it's goal; a bunch of western 'do-gooders' hailed a massacre and shed tears for the perpetrators rather than the victims. Well done!
First of all, Mr. Berardinelli should learn that Vukovar is not a town in Bosnia, but the 4th or 5th biggest city of Croatia, and that the happenings depicted in this movie are not part of the Bosnian war (which was started much later), but have transpired in 1991 at the very beginning of the Serbian war against Croatia, a country that had just been born and did not possess a military at the time, as a matter of fact did not possess any armed forces whatsoever other that the local police. So much as far as the bare facts are concerned. Bearing this in mind, the viewer will immediately see that most of the happenings depicted in this movie could not have happened, and if they had read up on this issue from any unbiased source, they would know that Vukovar was nothing less than a massacre of civilian population perpetrated by the then (still) Yugoslav army and Serb paramilitary forces.
As far as the movie is concerned, notwithstanding all of the above and the fact that it is essentially a lie, I did not even see any 'technically' appealing issues. I found everything to be way below par; the acting, the direction, the screenplay, cinematography, sound... Nothing was good. But somehow, the propaganda achieved it's goal; a bunch of western 'do-gooders' hailed a massacre and shed tears for the perpetrators rather than the victims. Well done!