Oct

16

Directed by Hans-Christian Schmid

STORM, from the passionate and disciplined Hans-Christian Schmid, is in Danish, German, English, Serbian and Bosnian. In any language, it is a must-see.

A gripping political thriller and an important documentation of the horrendous 1990s ethnic violence in Yugoslavia, Serbia and Bosnia.

The Hollywood Reporter lauds it with “Acting across the board is splendid,” but the superb acting is only a portion of the significance of this film, which grapples with a theme few filmmakers would be intrepid enough to approach.

The attractive Hannah Maynard (Kerry Fox, a standout here, last seen in the intense ANGEL AT MY TABLE, brilliant in everything she graces) is the put-upon prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal of the Hague. She is shunted into a trial that is already three years in against a former commander of the Yugoslavian National Army accused of deportation, later murder and brutal ethnic cleansing of Bosnian-Muslim civilians. Though he is acclaimed as a hero among his Serbian confreres, he is an unacknowledged monster among those whom he mistreated but who are yet alive…and dead silent about what they underwent during the violence that transfixed the global airwaves 15 years ago.

The key witness for the case unaccountably commits suicide, almost capsizing the entire case. Though her colleagues and overseers tell her to pack it in, Maynard refuses to yield in the face of what she knows to be a critical juncture in historical justice. Convinced she can unearth further witnesses and reliable facts, and despite ugly intimidation from unexpected sources wherever she travels, as well as cool words from her politically connected statesman-lover, Maynard determines there is extractable dirt under the surface in various sites in Sarajevo. She meets people distraught and silently furious, yet clearly still unable to dare come forward with their witness. The moiling angers of the past may seem smooth to the tourist, but to the citizens trying to make their way among dangerous powers still evidently entrenched and not shy about what they can do to the inconvenient, they are mute. Maynard works all her diplomatic skills and wiles to convince Mira (an extraordinary Anamaria Marinca, prize-winning Romanian actress winner of the Palme D’Or for 4 months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days), sister of the suicide, to testify.

The relevance of the film could not be stronger, as on 19 October, the trial date of the accused Radovan Karadzic is on the Hague calendar. The former Bosnian Serb leader stands accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violation of the law at the International Crimes Tribunal. His trial, in fact, is a fulcrum for world reaction and persecution of the Bosnian massacres—and demonstrates sharply the importance of pursuing these crimes via every means possible.

Perhaps by shining the light on such crimes, these terrible abuses and horror can be brought to heel, and possibly stemmed.


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