Thanks to a recommendation from one of my readers on Quora, I became aware of this 1996 Serbian movie about the Bosnian War a few days ago. It might not be the best movie about civil war, but it’s probably the best I’ve seen. Pretty Village, Pretty Flame, directed by Srđan Dragojević, is about childhood best friends Milan and Halil, a Christian Serb and Muslim Bosniak, who end up on opposing sides of the civil war.
I’ll try not to spoil the plot too much because it’s worth watching. There’s a version with subtitles in several different languages including English here.
Even while watching this movie, I noticed the similarities with Alex Garland’s Civil War from last year (see my review here), and it’s hard for me to believe those similarities are coincidental. Did Garland think he could rip off an old foreign movie and get away with it? Maybe. Kirsten Dunst even looks a lot like the American woman journalist in Pretty Village. The main difference is that the journalist character in Pretty Village is comic relief, both the filmmaker and the depicted soldiers don’t value the earth-shattering contributions of American war reporters asking everyone if they speak English. But since Hollywood liberals have a self-identity adjacent to journalists, their movies always depict journos as heroes.
Another difference is the respective budgets. Pretty Village was made for $2 million, Civil War $70 million. Even adjusting for inflation Civil War was vastly more expensive, and with nothing to show for it. Pretty Village has exciting and believable action sequences, while Civil War leans heavily into cheaply rendered computer animation that makes the audience wonder where all that $70 million went. Mostly into the producer and actors’ own pockets, apparently. What can make the difference between good and poor production value is the director understanding the limitations of his budget and skill. Even massive blockbuster films like The Ten Commandments (see my review here) demonstrated an understanding of what available special effects could and couldn’t do, and stayed inside those limits. If you can’t show Moses’s snake eating the Pharaoh’s snakes then have it happen off screen. If you can’t show a giant battle for Washington DC without looking like a silly cartoon then don’t show it. Most of the action in Pretty Village takes place in an abandoned tunnel. There isn’t a need for giant battle sequences, and even showing something like that would take away from the grounded story about a select few characters.
I say Pretty Village is a good movie about civil war because it doesn’t go too deep into politics. Of course a movie made by Christian Serbs about Christian Serbs will be most sympathetic to Christian Serbs, but it doesn’t try to justify their actions in the war, and it doesn’t demonize the Muslim Bosniaks. Apologetics for Serbs or condemnation of Bosniaks would detract from the film’s message about the tragedy of brother war. Communities, families, friends and coworkers who had lived together peacefully turned on each other in the most brutal way possible. Brother wars are the most senseless of wars, as there was no disagreement here they couldn’t have worked out peacefully without bloodshed. What really makes a war “senseless” is that there is no victory. There can be no victory in a brother war because there is no foreign enemy and they’re just destroying themselves.
There are no winners in a brother war, only survivors. It is quite literally like using your left hand to cut off your right hand and declaring victory. You didn’t defeat a foreign adversary, you just mutilated yourself. Surviving self-mutilation doesn’t make it a good thing. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule like the American Civil War, but that’s because there was a population of people who were enslaved and treated like property. Victory in the American Civil War meant people were no longer slaves. But who was enslaved in Yugoslavia? It was just senseless killing.
Milan and Halil do eventually have a final fight but there’s nothing good or glorious about it. It’s worse than a divorce. There is such a thing as an amicable divorce, but divorces are usually bad, and they’re an act of self-mutilation. When you tell someone that you were in a relationship with for years or decades, you avenge and bring out all of the bad memories, and tarnish the good memories. Milan and Halil were best friends their whole lives and it ended in a blood feud. Even the person who survives that final fight can’t fondly look back at the good times anymore.
Now for some spoilers so if you haven’t watched the movie already you should before reading further.
One character I felt did not get enough attention in reviews of Pretty Village was the school teacher, Bolnicarka. At first glance, one might dismiss a woman being tortured and killed on screen as cheap shock value, but there was a lot more to it than that which may require some explanation about the male psychology. The school teacher might be the first adult woman a young boy interacts with regularly besides his own mother, and she may well be a beautiful woman in her 20s or 30s. So it is normal for him to be sexually attracted to her, even if he doesn’t know what sex is yet.
Young Milan and Halil mischievously spy on Bolnicarka having sex with the school photographer at a picnic in the woods, which is portrayed in a silly comedic sequence that, like her death, might also be dismissed as cheap shock value but there is a point to it. The school teacher is loved by the boys as a strict disciplinary figure, a kind den mother and a sex symbol all wrapped up in one person, so harming her is sacrilegious. Bolnicarka was tortured by her own students, then sent into the tunnel and shot by some of her other students. The Serbs shoot Bolnicarka because they fear the Bosniaks attached a bomb to her, and this leaves them hopeless and suicidal. Now perhaps you understand why they felt like that, and it is not only because they shot a woman. And just to clarify, by this point the situation was already hopeless and desperate, they were already drinking their own urine. But in the end, it was the murder of the school teacher that pushed them over the edge. This is also a scene you will never see in a modern American movie because Hollywood liberals don’t have the life experience, education or imagination to understand why a civil war is such a chilling catastrophe.
During the sex scene there’s an announcement over the radio that Tito died. The adults in coitus cry and the children pretend to cry, though they don’t understand why they should care about some silly old man they’ve never met. It’s a nice political angle to a moment that already had a purpose in the story, and further emphasizes the difference between children and adults. The adults who know about (and are having) sex are also grown up enough to understand why Tito’s death is a disaster. There’s a sense of dread and the people don’t know if the country will survive without him. It’s not unlike Stalin’s death. There was the personality cult, but also the personality. The children don’t understand sex or politics, so don’t understand why Tito’s death is a big deal. As a viewer reflecting on this movie, I would say that tying sex and politics together like this was a brilliant bit of storytelling.
Speaking of sex and sex organs, there is another scene in which Halil shows Milan that he’s circumcised, which they both find funny. But whether or not the penis has a foreskin was the reason adults butchered each other, and their children, by the tens of thousands. Circumcision exists for the exact purpose to differentiate “us” and “them.” Girls are a diplomatic tool who sometimes get married off to other tribes so it is the boys who need to be differentiated. This is the only movie I have ever seen to make that brutal point so frankly and literally. Arguing about the merits of Christianity and Islam is a distraction. It really, literally, boils down to “Does your penis have a foreskin or not?” Viewers probably don’t find this scene significant, but it really highlights the absurdity of the Bosnian War more than anything else in the film.
For me, the most important scene comes right near the end, and also the reason I say Bosniaks are not demonized though atrocities committed by Bosniaks are highlighted throughout the movie. Milan vowed to kill the Bosniak boy in the same hospital ward as him. Milan steals a fork and one night falls out of his bed and crawls toward the Bosniak’s room. It is an agonizing effort that reopens Milan’s wounds and leaves a huge trail of blood, symbolizing the insanity and self-destructiveness of seeking revenge. But Milan changes his mind, and chooses to not kill the Bosniak. The stronger party voluntarily choosing to not have his revenge is the only way to break a cycle of violence.
The MacGuffin of the movie is the tunnel most of the fighting takes place in. A pseudo-news real at the beginning shows the grand opening ceremony of the Tunnel of Brotherhood and Unity. The failure of the tunnel symbolizes the failure of Yugoslavian brotherhood and unity. During the ceremony a politician cutting the red ribbon accidentally cuts open his thumb and sprays blood all over the face of a young pioneer girl, Chekhov’s blood. Then at the end, it is reopened as the Tunnel of Peace built to European standards. Once again, the politician cutting the ribbon cuts his thumb and the movie cuts to black. And the rest is history. The Tunnel of Peace also failed with more civil war, culminating with the delightful democratic Europeans bombing Belgrade. So much for European standards.
In 2024, it is not possible to watch this movie without thinking of Ukraine. In the Bosnian War, there was at least a religious difference to feud over, but Ukrainians and Russians don’t even have that. What exactly is the fight about? There’s the “denazification” and it is true that Ukrainians love naming everything after Father Bandera. But I don’t think it is a correct statement to say this just a repeat of World War II’s struggle between communism and fascism. Russians certainly aren’t communists and it really isn’t exactly correct to say Ukrainians are fascists. Kiev isn’t really building national socialism” as envisioned by Hitler. The swastikas and SS symbols are more about the idea of being in opposition to Russians, which really isn’t an idea at all. Opposition to an idea is not its own idea. But like in the Bosnian War, parents kill children, children kill parents, siblings kill siblings, neighbors kill neighbors, and schoolboys kill school teachers.
What else can I say?
Ian Kummer
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“But like in the Bosnian War, parents kill children, children kill parents, siblings kill siblings, neighbors kill neighbors, and schoolboys kill school teachers”.
Cui bono?
You wrote a great review.
Thanks for the review. Have not watched either movie, but am intending to do so no.
… to do so now.
One critical note.
» Victory in the American Civil War meant people were no longer slaves. «
I challenge you to find personal documents from those engaged in the civil war that shows fighting for or against the institution of slavery was part of their mind set and motivation.
The causes of the civil war had little to do with abolition, a movement that had been around for a while already.
It is a romantic rationale that was invented post facto, much like the ex post facto rationale for Hiroshima.
It’s based on a true story. Serbian journalist Vanja Bulić wrote the novel” The Tunnel” after interview with one of the three survivors Slađan Simić. Slađan Simić later went back to the front and was killed by his own people in a freak accident. There was misunderstanding about password during the guard shift.