Daily Breeze, LA

Articulate, passionate Jolie and 'In the Land of Blood and Honey'

By Rob Lowman Staff Writer

Posted: 12/16/2011 07:22:44 PM PST

Updated: 12/16/2011 07:26:02 PM PST

Angelina Jolie, writer and director of the film "In the Land of Blood and Honey" poses at the premiere in Los Angeles, Thursday, Dec. 8, 2011. (The Associated Press)

Sitting beside her, Angelina Jolie doesn't seem like the world's most glamorous movie star.
She's dressed in a conservative black dress with a jacket.
Occasionally, her sleeves ride up revealing a glimpse of tattoos on her forearms, reminding you of all the gossipy stuff you have heard about her over the years. But as she begins to talk about her new film, "In the Land of Blood and Honey" - which she wrote and directed but does not star in - you soon forget about all that.
Take away the movie star and Brangelina labels, and you hear someone informed, articulate and passionate.
"In the Land of Blood and Honey," which opens Wednesday, tells the story of Danijel, a Bosnian Serb police officer, and Ajla,

"In the Land of Blood and Honey."

a Bosnian Muslim artist, who meet on the eve of the war in Bosnia that erupted in 1992. That horrific genocidal conflict cost the lives of 100,000, displaced more than 2 million people and introduced the term "ethnic cleansing" to the world. Jolie says her interest in the project began about a decade ago when she started traveling to conflict and post-conflict locations.
"I've met a lot of victims of war and spent a lot of time talking with them, and I've been very frustrated with the thought of `Oh, this could have been prevented' or `Had there been intervention sooner it wouldn't have gone to this point,"' says the actress, who has worked as a goodwill ambassador for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for
Refugees and has lobbied on behalf of displaced people. As she became more involved with refugees and traumatized victims, Jolie would hear horrible stories, such as a grandmother being crucified. Eventually, she wanted to write a story about how decent people are transformed and lose their humanity in war.
Jolie calls the script "a private meditation," and it sat on her desk for a while until her partner, Brad Pitt, looked at it and told her maybe she should show it to someone.

"In the Land of Blood and Honey."

She approached producer Graham King ("The Departed," "Hugo"), but he says by the time he came on board, Jolie already was plowing ahead with the project.
Wanting to make sure she got things right in the film, which reportedly cost $15 million, Jolie consulted with experts on the Bosnian War, which came about with the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia. Among those she talked to were Richard Holbrooke, the architect of the Dayton Accords, which ended the conflict in December 1995, and former NATO commander Gen. Wesley Clark.
"It's complicated for everybody," says Jolie, who recalls that the advice she got for her film was to "approach it carefully and thoughtfully from all sides."
To that end, the

In this Nov. 5, 2006 photo, actress and United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie poses in New Delhi, India. (The Associated Press)

first-time director was keen on having actors who were both Serbs and ethnic Muslims. First to join the cast was Rade Serbedzija, a Croatian Serb actor-musician who is known for roles in big Hollywood films like "Mission: Impossible II" and "Space Cowboys." He had been offered parts in other films about the war and had turned them down, but he liked Jolie's approach and "passion." In "Blood and Honey" he plays Danijel's father, a nationalistic Serbian general carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Zana Marjanovic was cast as Ajla. The 28-year-old actress was born in Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, and as a young girl was taught that it was impolite to ask somebody his or her ethnicity. When the war began her family fled, and she eventually spent her adolescence in New York City. She has since returned to Sarajevo, where she is a well-known TV star.
"It was about going back and saying, `OK, I'm going to be able to decide whether I want to leave or not, and it's not for you to tell me,"' she says.
Goran Kostic, who plays Danijel, moved to London in 1991, and although he is from a Serbian family with a long history of military service, he was advised by them not to return during the conflict.
But Vanessa Glodjo, a Bosnian who plays Ajla's older sister, Lejla, spent the war in Sarajevo, which was under siege for nearly four years. She remembers the constant fear of sniper fire, and was wounded by shrapnel in the head, leg and hand when a mortar hit her house.
When the former Yugoslavia broke apart, long-standing resentments boiled over in a country that had seemed the model of peace only a few years before with the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo.
It is estimated that 20,000 to 50,000 women were raped while in captivity during the war, and in many towns men were rounded up and executed, bodies dumped in mass graves. The United States was criticized for waiting too long to intervene in the conflict.
"(Former President Bill) Clinton has not seen the film but I warned him," Jolie says with a small laugh.
But the actress says her script isn't meant to try to make sense out of the war.
"The question when I wrote the film was what if it was me and my family?" she says. "If someone kills somebody in my family, rapes me, rapes my friends, attacks me, sooner or later something would change, and the hope is that I can hold on to my humanity."
One of her goals in making the film, Jolie says, is that she hopes it will bring about more dialogue among the people of the region. While "In the Land of Blood and Honey" recently drew praise after a screening in Bosnia, it also has critics in the region - most of whom haven't seen the film. Yet it speaks to the rawness of people's feelings.
"I think maybe it's too late for us because we've been scarred by the conflict," admits Kostic. "But there are those kids, those younger generations, who have come and been born pure and innocent. We should try at least to give them a greater understanding of the place they have been born in and the conflict of the past ... so it doesn't happen again. As Angelina says, `We cannot make great leaps forward, but we can do it little by little by little until we get there."'
Later, Glodjo seems to make Kostic's point as she becomes emotional while recounting her own wartime experiences and losses.
"We forget that sometimes," says Jolie. "It's only 15 years ago. The people that perpetrated the atrocities and some people who fought each other are still neighbors." And while an uneasy peace prevails and "there are some great people that speak out, most of the time people simply do not want to talk about it."
What Jolie finds disconcerting is that now children of different ethnic groups go to separate schools when once their parents learned the same history of Yugoslavia.
"So what is that doing?" Jolie wonders.
In her own household, the 36-year-old actress says she and Pitt try to teach their six children about the "ugly side" of war and encourage them to ask questions. The couple's three adopted children were born in the former conflict zones of Cambodia, Ethiopia and Vietnam.
"We don't want them to think it's fun or just a video game, so we make them aware of it," she says. "When I go to these different countries we tell them why, so they're quite educated on it."
Jolie says she didn't intend to be a director and that she had turned down offers before to do so.
"I didn't realize how much I'd love it," she admits. "I really enjoyed being with the crew and not going into hair and makeup and not having to be in front of the camera. I loved having an actress and shining the spotlight on her. She was a movie star, and I got to be the one in the corner with the sound guy."
Jolie isn't sure what she is going to do next. She's been nervous about the reception for "In the Land of Blood and Honey," which will be honored by the Producers Guild of America with the 2012 Stanley Kramer Award, which acknowledges films that explore social issues.
"I think my family would like me to do something just for fun, so I could not be so crazy at home," she says. "Just something I could relax for a bit because every single thing on this was just" - she pauses - "heavy."
And while Jolie is rumored to be teaming up with French director Luc Besson on a sci-fi project, it turns out she has written a script about Afghanistan women and U.S. female soldiers.
"It's something I've been studying," she says, "but I haven't shown anybody yet."
Asked if he's seen the script, producer King smiles and says, "I'm sure I will."
So while there are those who may see something incongruous about an international star who appears in Louis Vuitton ads making a film about the Bosnian War, Jolie appears to know how to keep her priorities straight. She doesn't go online to see what people are saying about her or "watch certain channels" or read "those magazines."
"I don't want it to be in my psyche, not only because I don't want to be in (tabloids), but I don't want to be thinking of other people in that way."

Rob Lowman 818-713-3687 robert.lowman@dailynews.com

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"What's risky is living your life & never trying for anything or getting yourself scared."-Angelina Jolie #bloodandhoney...