Strong and Moving!

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

In the Land of Blood and Honey (2011)** 1/2 (out of 4)The Serbian Danijel (Goran Kostic) begins a relationship with the Muslim Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) just as the Bosnian War breaks out. Soon Ajla finds herself a captive to Danijel but the two slowly fall in love as the war gets bloodier.Anjelina Jolie wrote and directed this film, which has a clear message throughout. There's no doubt that Jolie had a political motivation behind the movie and she wanted her message to be heard. Many people have called IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY an awful movie but I'm not going to go that far. In fact, I give Jolie a lot of credit for attempting to make a movie like this and especially when you consider it was the first feature she directed.There's no doubt that there are a great number of flaws to be found here and I think the biggest problem is in the screenplay. The plot of this movie is extremely light weight and I'd argue that it's way too simple and single minded for its own good. I say that because the love story here is just one-note and it's really not too hard to figure out how it's going to end. I think the film really would have benefited had Jolie punched up the film and made it a bit deeper than just these two opposites who find themselves attracted to one another.The battle sequences were certainly better handled by Jolie and she certainly wants to show the sometime graphic violence for what it is. I can't help but think that the director was influenced by SCHINDLER'S LIST and she wanted the violence to really hit people in the gut. Another problem with the film is that at just 127 minutes the film seems a lot longer due to the slow pacing as well as some subplots that really never add up to much.For the most part I thought the performances were the best thing in the picture with Marjanovic easily stealing the film as the woman who faces various forms of horror as she tries to survive her ordeal. I also liked Kostic in his role as I thought he managed to pull off the rather difficult character. With that said, IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY isn't a complete success but it's not the bomb some people have made it out to be.

If I could give this movie more than 10 stars, I would!Directing: There were a few cuts that could have been better explained, but the direction of the actors, the story, and the well filmed battle scenes were very good. Excellent job from an up-and- coming director like Angelina Jolie! You felt like you were actually in the room with the characters, and I constantly got lost within each character as I watched. The directing style reminded me a lot of "The Patience Stone", which is also a war movie centered around an innocent, civilian, Muslim woman. I noted when I had watched "The Patience Stone" that it had a very unique, never before seen vibe. This movie instantly struck me as being the same. The directing really pulled you in. Cast: Amazing! The choice of non-Hollywood actors who actually knew how to act well was just perfect. The casting itself couldn't have been better. They handled their script well, and fit into their roles perfectly.Story: Super interesting. The film is about an artist who comes from a partisan supporting family, thus has no or very little racial prejudices. The love interest/antagonist comes from a traditional, military serving background. Their personalities are stark opposites. But the "opposites" attract and complement idea really makes their relationship believable and enjoyable to watch. This film pulls you into the realities and human cost of war. It also deals with the subject that war is something that changes one's character (or brings it out), and that no side ever really wins. Of course you can win in the political sense-but ultimately every ordinary person pays a high price. It also touches on the issue that a person can be decent, but if they are born into the wrong side, there is no forgiveness or grace. War is not personal but collective, and yet at the same time carries a very personal price. The film surprised me as it had the characteristics of being several types of films at once. In the first third of the movie, it is a gut wrenching, keep you on the edge of your seat war movie. The middle is a love story destined for failure, the last third is a philosophical and psychological thriller. The last third of the movie leaves you with a lot of scenes where you're asking yourself, "huh?", but then it's the final scene of the movie that really tells you what this film was all about. It shows the ability of people who would have been "good" in a normal life to be war criminals--and how there is no escaping your fate once the cycle of generations has been set in motion. It also gives legitimacy for foreign intervention. There are some battles in life that are far greater than two people, and far greater than one generation. They cannot be resolved by leaving them to work it out. Cinematography: Again, really good. So there are a lot of critics of this movie-I can partially understand why.It's not a typical Hollywood movie, i.e. it's not supposed to hand you explanations on a plate or make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside towwards the end. And part of the critique's of this movie are probably because the protagonist is a Croatian Muslim. As a woman, and a foreigner who was completely removed and even a child during when the real war took place: I am able to completely set aside bias, and enjoy the movie for what it is. The bottom line is, regardless of who you support in a war, it is ultimately the women and children who pay a price. They are the true victims. In that sense, this film is not about Muslims vs. Christians: It is about all civilians who are victims of wars. Extra kudos for the lead character being a woman. I love war movies, but more often then not they are only told from the soldiers' point of view. Very rarely (in fact never), have I seen a war movie with a female protagonist. Besides this, I actually thought the film was well shot, had a great story, and overall was just a great movie. I love it that Angelina Jolie is actually taking her international experience and bringing it to the big screen. Any film that deals with the topic of war from the real-life standpoint is a movie that needs to be made in our life time. War is a terrible thing. A lot of wars happening are in parts of the world that people do not really understand. The inhumane treatment, rape and routine killing of civilians by soldiers is something underrated in common Western mindset.

Perhaps if this film had not been written and directed by the beautiful Angelina Jolie it would be recognized as one of the great war films. Its distinctive focus is the victimization of women in war. An end title tells us 50,000 women were raped in the Bosnian war. In the title's variation on the Promised Land, the phrase 'milk and honey' is supplanted by 'blood and honey.' That is, murder replaces sustenance, rape love, betrayal trust, and humanity is supplanted by the murderous machinery of war.One soldier tells Danijel that his pregnant wife must be delivering a son because a little daughter would drive him mad with doting. In the context his madness would have a different source: her doom to become another victim of a soldier's rape.The larger theme is the pervasiveness of division. The first shot is an aerial view of the landscape, A slash of river divides the Serbs and Bosnians. The people get along well enough to enjoy a dance together, where the Bosnian Moslem Ajla charmingly connects with the Serb soldier Danijel. Their promising romance is interrupted when a bomb shatters the club.When they next meet Ajla is a prisoner and Danijel the camp commander. That power gap inhibits both their attraction, until her humiliation drives them together. The tender eroticism of their first lovemaking derives from the refuge each finds in the other, she from the other Serb soldiers' brutality and he from the callousness of his job, personified by his father the general. Even Danijel's protection fails when he is transferred to Sarajevo. They are reunited when she, having escaped the first camp, falls in with the Bosnian underground and agrees to let herself be captured to enable her comrades to get at Danijel, now more murderous than his father. Their lovemaking turns wild from Danijel's doubting her. The division of that promising romantic couple gives way to the division within each character. Danijel is torn between his love for her and his father's hatred of the Bosnians, for what they have done to the Serbs. Ajla overcomes her emotions for Danijel to avenge the Serbs' murder of her infant nephew. So neither a passionate love nor a driven character's mission can survive the division by war.In her first scene Ajla is painting a self-portrait, in relatively naturalistic style. At the end we see her final self-portrait, a more expressionistic one in which she seems to have imposed her own splotchy image on the portrait Danijel's father ordered her to make of him, before he ordered her rape by another brute soldier. In this painting Ajla tries to expunge the general and her lover. Her ultimate portrait is what Danijel makes when his bullet to her head leaves an abstract red brushstroke against the canvas of the white wall. Bereft of all his resolve and mission he surrenders to the UN peacekeepers as a war criminal. In another form of self-portraiture Each character discovers him/herself from the tests of the war. In their night visit to the art gallery Ajla teaches Danijel that in art the most important part is the empty spaces, where the artist decides to do nothing. The war is the something the parties should not be doing. The war discovers the vacancy in both warring parties and the war's emptying of all the people's hearts, whether the respective ethnic communities or the central lovers, both together and alone.The film should not be judged as a documentary record of this war. As a fiction its thematic sweep covers a larger issue: every war's undermining of nature, humanity, and the positive sustenance of our feminine nature.

In the Land of Blood and Honey passed almost unnoticed among viewers and critics alike, except in the countries that emerged from the former Yugoslavia, where it created a considerable controversy.In order to understand this, we'd have to explain the history of Balkans and origins of civil war that led to the collapse of Yugoslavia. But even the executive summary of such a story would take up more time than Angelina Jolie's feature film directorial debut.So if you ignore historical background and accuracy, this is essentially a bad movie. The script is idiotic and acting mediocre. In order to make the movie more realistic the characters talk in English with local dialect. This might be convincing to the average viewer but sounds stupid to anyone who knows this part of the world.The only good thing is the atmosphere at the beginning of the conflict, where most of the people believed the war would be over in a matter of weeks.I find it remarkable that a star like Angelina Jolie devotes her times to humanitarian work and tells the world the untold stories of human suffering. At the same time it is regrettable that such stories are biased according to the current dogma envisioned by international politics and media. According to that, it is crystal clear who the good guys are and they should be absolved from all wrongdoing. On the other hand, for the supposed misdeeds of the bad guys the whole population of their country should be punished until eternity.This is black-and-white image of the world which, in my opinion, is against the founding principles of UNHCR, where Angelina Jolie holds a distinguished post.