With its literal filmmaking and dutiful speeches, the film feels more like one of those overly scripted appearances celebrity activists are always making in front of Congress.
FILE- In this file image released by Film District, Goran Kostic, left, and Rade Serbedzija are shown in a scene from "In the Land of Blood and Honey." (AP Photo/Film District, Ken Regan, FILE)“In the Land of Blood and Honey” TWO STARS
Rated: R for war violence, rape, sexuality, nudity, language. In Bosnian, with English subtitles
Running time: 127 minutes
Playing at: Amherst Cinema
Asking recently about “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” a friend was a little worried that it might be ... good.
Angelina Jolie, she explained, was so beautiful, so rich, and living with Brad Pitt – well, if she turned out to be a great director too, it just might be too much for a normal woman to bear.
Well, no worries. Angelina Jolie is still beautiful, rich and living with Brad Pitt. But judging by “In the Land of Blood and Honey,” there’s still at least one thing even she could use a little improvement in.
Made with the best intentions – but not the best script – it’s a story set during the long bloody Balkan war of the early ‘90s, and based on a fairly hard-to-swallow gimmick.
On the eve of the war, you see, a beautiful Bosnian Muslim meets up with a strapping Serbian Christian at a disco. They flirt, dance, make a bit of a connection.
Then war breaks out. That night.
And the Bosnian immediately lands in an ethnic-cleansing camp run by her new Serbian boyfriend – who, later, will make sure she gets her own bedroom, complete with private bath, and art supplies.
When word of the movie first got out, some survivors of that awful conflict were upset – as well they might be. This is treading close to queasy “Night Porter” territory, a kinky romance in the death camps.
That’s not Jolie’s intention, obviously – “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is clearly meant to demonstrate that it’s politics, not reality, that makes these people enemies. And it doesn’t shrink from picturing the brutal war crimes that convulsed that region.
But the love story still ends up only trivializing the real story; it’s as if a Holocaust movie stopped to show a “good” prison guard pitching woo at a pretty inmate.
Zana Marjanovic, who plays the captive, has dark, interesting looks and Goran Kostic, who plays her captor, has a bit of Daniel Craig’s rough masculinity; together they do a lot with what are very thinly written characters. And the veteran Rade Serbedzija gets the juiciest role as a hard-bitten old general.
But his speeches, however well-delivered, are mostly baldly expository history lessons on the region’s ancient conflicts; the details of its modern one are handled by far-too-many overheard radio broadcasts, as Jolie works overtime to give us a crash course on the region.
Which I understand. She has long been interested in international conflicts and the lives they ruin; her last passion project, “Beyond Borders,” hop-scotched from Africa to Chechnya, as it told the story of a socialite falling in love with a humanitarian doctor.
But that’s just it: It told a story. While “In the Land of Blood and Honey” – with its literal filmmaking and dutiful speeches feels more like one of those overly scripted appearances celebrity activists are always making in front of Congress.
Which perhaps, now that she’s gotten moviemaking out of her system, Jolie will go back to making again.