Angelina Jolie in New York on Tuesday.
Eric Kohn
Angelina Jolie got a crash course in Bosnian politics while shooting her
directorial debut, "In the Land of Blood and Honey." Rumors swirled
that the film set during the Bosnian War involved a rape victim falling
in love with her attacker. Protests led the production to nearly lose
its shooting permit and the actress-turned-filmmaker found herself
having to set the record straight for Bosnia's cultural minister.
When she returned to her shooting schedule, Jolie said she felt even
closer to her all-Bosnian cast. "They said, 'Welcome to the area,'" she
recalled.
"Nobody who had an issue with the film had read the script or knew what
it was about," Jolie said during a press conference for the film
yesterday in New York. "It was a fear of the unknown, I suppose."
Set for a limited release by FilmDistrict on December 23 ahead of a
wider release in January, "In the Land of Blood and Honey" is the bleak
tale of Aija (Zana Marjanovic), a Bosnian Muslim woman who has a brief
romantic encounter with Serbian soldier Danijel (Goran Kostic) before
the war. Later, Danijel develops into a fierce soldier but manages to
keep Ajila safe in the prison camp he runs. While their affair behind
closed doors courts danger, the movie's extends beyond forbidden love to
explore the ubiquitous sense of claustrophobia and danger experienced
by Bosnians at the time.
Underscoring that point, Tuesday's press conference was moderated by
longtime NPR journalist Tom Gjelten, who spoke of his experiences
covering the war. "This really is the way it was," he told a roomful of
journalists, citing the film's depictions of cramped detention camps and
forced evacuations in the film. He then asked a number of Serbian
castmembers to share their war stories, leading to a dour series of
testimonials that took the focus off the star director and turned the
experience into something closer to a focus group.
Those stories, of course, were precisely what drew Jolie to the
material. A teenager during the Bosnian war, she only recognized the
depth of trauma it caused for countless Bosnians later in life. "When I
first approached the film, I never planned to direct anything," she
said. "I had been haunted for years by the lack of intervention people
face in conflict."
Research about the war brought an immediacy to her concerns. "It was a
war of my generation and something I felt a responsibility to write
about," she said. "The more I learned about it, the more I was
overwhelmed by the guilt of how little I knew." To prepare for the
movie, she spoke with many war survivors. "It was very hard and
emotional," she said.
"Blood and Honey" sports a grim tone that places it alongside other
dark historical dramas about war, torture and societal oppression in
general. More surprisingly, the movie has genuine production values
rather than the first-time amateurishness some viewers might expect from
a global celebrity with the power to make the movie on her own terms.
Angelina Jolie directs "In the Land of Blood and Honey."
FilmDistrict
Jolie said her work with countless top-tier directors helped her prepare
for the experience. She cited Clint Eastwood, who cast her
in"Changeling," as her primary mentor. "He taught me a lot about working
with people you love," she said. "He's also very fast. I had to learn
about the economy of a shoot and a budget." She also mentioned her
experience with Michael Winterbottom on "A Mighty Heart." "The way he
set the tone made it feel real," she said. "He allowed a lot of room for
the actors to create something that wasn't pushed on them."
Jolie managed to do that by allowing her actors to speak in their
native language. (While they also recorded their dialogue in English,
the Bosnian version will hit U.S. theaters.) The bigger challenge,
however, was shooting scenes of rough violence. Jolie mentioned an early
moment where Serbian soldiers line up their women captives and proceed
to rape them. "As a director, I didn't want to ask women to do that,"
she said. "I felt that I was torturing them myself, so I kept
apologizing and telling them that they were doing a great service to
other women. It was much harder for the men that were there. This was
not their nature."
But she made peace with the scene, she said, because she felt the movie
addressed bigger issues. "It's not simply about violence against
women," she said. "It's about how human beings break down when
surrounded by such horror, ugliness and hate. Even decent people are
broken. I did this so we would have these questions and discuss wars
around the world today -- and what could happen tomorrow."
She said it wasn't a duty she took lightly. "You feel a huge pressure
and responsibility for this very real, difficult part of history," she
said. "I still feel that pressure."
Her closeness to the material was evident when she bristled at a
question about early comparisons of the movie's plot to "Romeo and
Juliet." She called it "an oversimplification," adding, "I think we all
know that story as people from opposite sides who find their way to each
other. This is two people from the same side who are then told they are
different and cannot be together. It's the opposite."
Ducking easy hooks for her movie, Jolie made it clear that the
commercial prospects for a project of this nature are dicey. Asked if
she wanted to work on other difficult projects, she replied, "We had a
very low budget, so we're starting at a good base." It was the rare
moment where she allowed herself to laugh. "The success was being able
to get this made," she said. "I hope people see it as a piece of art as
well. I hope the actors involved are acknowledged for being
extraordinary. My fingers are crossed for that."
