Nov 08 2010
Watch Welcome to Sarajevo Online
Compare Prices on Welcome to Sarajevo
As a journalist familiar with Yugoslavia and the tragedies of its breakway states, I was prepared to disapprove this movie about foreign journalists working during the siege of Sarajevo. I plan, here goes Hollywood exploiting an abomination of the 20th Century. What I saw, in fact, humbled me and moved me to many tears. Director Michael Winterbottom takes an unflinching, docudrama arrive, integrating genuine news footage of atrocities with his no frills production. There is no exploitation of suffering here. Winterbottom has an unabashed agenda: to shock, relate, educate and divulge. It is hardly entertainment. The result, devoid of sentimentality, glamour and a neatly-packaged denoument, is refreshingly un-Hollywood. The characters played by Woody Harrelson, Marisa Tomei in a miniature role, Kerry Fox, Stephen Dillane and the stunning Croatian actor Goran Visnjic, interrogate dilemmas journalists habitually face in war zones or not: how to remain just, whether compassion is appropriate and whether or not to become eager with a sage. The journalists, share of a profession where bravado, gallow humour and stamina for drink and adrenalin go with the territory, bring these characteristics to the fore in their dangerous bunker, Sarajevo’s evil Holiday Inn. The film is based partly on the moral yarn of Michael Henderson’s (played by Dillane) experience in war-torn Bosnia. Henderson, then others, gross the line of objectivity in their promise to attend some of the traumatised children of the bombarded city. There are no easy answers in war. I read … how the film moved a physician to assist in Bosnia and has been traditional to educate students in unique history. Who needs an Oscar with accurate life affirmations such as these?
Buy,Download, Or Stream Welcome to Sarajevo! Click Here
In the spring of 1992, news correspondents from around the world descended upon Bosnia to document the most horrific conflict Europe had seen since World War II. WELCOME TO SARAJEVO is the sage of those correspondents and the surreal world they entered when they checked into their rooms at the Holiday Inn (which, as fate would have it, was located upright on the inappropriate boulevard known as Sniper Alley; they couldn’t have found a better state to thought the action if they tried) .
One of those correspondents, Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane), has very itsy-bitsy patience with colleagues like Jordan Flynn (Woody Harrelson) who always acquire ways of moving themselves in the stories they’re covering. “We’re not here to back - we’re here to record,” he says. But Henderson finds it increasingly difficult to remain still from the carnage around him, especially when Serb artillery and Serb snipers originate targeting Sarajevo’s children. Frustrated by networks (who would rather lead with stories about the Duchess of York’s marital problems) and world leaders (who condemn the killing while allowing it to continue), Henderson finally decides to act; if he can’t finish the war, then he can at least place the life of a child.
Buy,Download, Or Stream Welcome to Sarajevo! Click Here
WELCOME TO SARAJEVO is based on “Natasha’s Memoir,” the 1993 myth of ITN correspondent Michael Nicholson. Director Michael Winterbottom has fashioned a mighty film by taking the events in Nicholson’s book and interweaving them with precise footage of the siege of Sarajevo. And he’s couldn’t have assembled a better cast; Stephen Dillaine and Woody Harrelson give the performances of their careers (thus far) as Henderson and Flynn, and they’re ably supported by Kerry Fox, Marisa Tomei, Emira Nusevic, and a charismatic, pre-ER Goran Visnjic (who comes terminate to walking away with the movie) .
When WELCOME TO SARAJEVO was released on VHS, one of the Amazon.com reviewers took archaic President Clinton to task for his “lies” about Bosnia, but he neglected to mention that most of the events depicted in this film (Bosnia’s descent into war, the breadline massacre, the establishment of Serb-operated concentration camps in Omarska and Trnopolje) took residence when George H.W. Bush was in the White House. Clearly there’s blame enough to go around. Bosnia wasn’t fair failed by the U.S., Britain, France, and the U.N.; Bosnia was failed by the world. And the world should be ashamed.
As for WELCOME TO SARAJEVO, it’s a shimmering and unforgettable portrait of one of the most lunatic periods in modern history. Don’t miss it.
Repossession Cars
Electronic Cigarette
Quit Cigarette Smoking
Portable Pop Up Display