Pretty Village, Pretty Flame

Rating:
Summary: Post - war propaganda
Review: This film was probably made not to entertain the audience, but more to show as much as possible the reality of the terrible agresion on Bosnia. But it does so for a small part only, showing the Bosniaks and Serbs living together peacefuly before the agresion. With the begin of hostilities this film leaves its half-folkloral nature and becomes a pure propaganda movie of serbian nationalists. Its attempt to blind the viewer, hoping he never watchs news or read a newspaper, is amaturelike and fails not only through its fake of reality, but also through poor cinematografic form. The dialogs are poor and the actors definitely not worth the theme of the movie. Handfull of interesting phrases and few fleshes of situation are by far not enough to save the movie from the abyss. The handling shows several onlogical moments. And as a concept of "we all suffered and we Serbs did not start the war" it only makes a serious and average informed viewer laughing. This movie does not entertain at all, and shows the events as unrealistic as any B - movie about Vietnamwar. And about facts it shows only that there are very unserious and nationalistic directors and producers in Serbia. My rating is absolutely thumb down. Comparing with, for example, No Man's Land this motion picture is failing in everything that makes movies about war a potential time window about occurences in former Yugoslavia. Instead to jump into the minds of people that participated the war, You can only get an idea of dogma that the director is trying to spread by making this underaverage movie.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
Review: This film, filmed in Serbia and eastern Bosnia, with a Serb cast, shortly after the war, should be of great interest to those seeking a very blunt verbal and visual addition to the study of the background and motives of Serbs that ended up in the forces of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic.

Rating:
Summary: Stark, dark, reallistic view of war
Review: This great movie should be seen by anyone who ever contemplated the thought that war can solve anything.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent, but troubling...
Review: This is a first rate war movie, right up there with Saving Private Ryan or Thin Red Line. But, to really understand it, first you have to be from Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia or Bosna/Herzegovina. Second, you must be smart and intelligent enough to see through it and third, you must not have dear friends and family killed in a war.

That's a pretty tall order, I know...

At first sight, the movie looks as pure Milosevic's propaganda and it's obvious why is that. It was the only way it could get made. But the authors were smarter, so they did what Verhoeven did with "Starship Troopers"- an all-out SF action for the masses and clever satire for the classes.

The story revolves around two friends (a Serb and A Muslim) who end up on different sides in the war (naturally), one being sieged by the other (both with their troops) in the unfinished tunnel of "Brotherhood and Unity" (excellent parallel, watch out for many more) somehwere in Bosnia... Terror, despair, friendship turned sour, people fooled by propaganda... All come out through the memories of better times for all peoples of the Balkans.

The telling of the story is rather complex, but you'll get it on your second or third viewing, if you can stomach it. Some scenes are quite disturbing, so watch out. This is not for children at all...

Rating:
Summary: Great War Movie + Great Portrait of a Time and Place
Review: This is a great war movie, comparable to Full Metal Jacket, etc. However, for me its value is a view of what Tito's Yugoslavia was and what happened to it. The tensions and countervailing cohesion of 1980s Bosnia are vividly presented, and the manner in which people found themselves in a civil war, sometimes despite themselves. It's also a wonderfully, darkly humorous movie despite the stupidity and banality of the horrific events that occurred in Bosnia. I cannot recommend this movie highly enough.

Rating:
Summary: Completely wrong
Review: This movie is a blatant lie. The whole world knwos that the Serbs attacked Bosnia. We all know what happened when each country from Yugoslavia wanted independence, Serbs attacked them. First Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia. Seriously though, Serbs have been trying to stir up trouble in Bosnia from ages ago. Remember what sparked the World War I? A Serbian did, he murdered Franz Ferdinand. Do I need to say more?
This movie is just a pathetic attempt from a Serbian to try to cover up what happened. No need for lies, the whole world knows. Serbia attacked Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. Their leaders are in jails, and half of them are still wanted for the genocide crimes. End of story.

Rating:
Summary: This is by far the best anti war movie ever filmed!
Review: This movie is set in pre post and during the Serbian conflict, shows the other side of the story, the side that the Americans would not be let seen. It is the story of 2 friends one a Serb and one a Muslim growing up and parting their separate ways just before the war starts. I found this movie very touching especially as it is a true account of the people it is about. When this movie was shot the war was still going on less than 30 kms away and in the same tunnel as the story, even things that were used in the battle that took place in real life were used in the movie, giving it that sense of realism that not even "Private Ryan" could come close to.

Rating:
Summary: Best war movie ever
Review: This movie makes all the other war movies seem fake. A must see. The english subtitles are great but on occasion they seemed to have gotten carried away.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting only to Yugoslavs or those studying Bosnian War
Review: Unless you're from Yugoslavia, have some connection to Yugoslavia, or are interested specifically in a sociological study of the Yugoslav wars, DO NOT waste your time or money on this movie. Yeah, it's all of the things that other reviewers have said: an anti-war film, an honest portrayal of the Bosnian War, etc.; it's also a poor quality movie. The plot is ridiculously simple, the characters are less than caricatures, and a lot of the shots and cinematography are worse than a junior high school film project. I have tried to read every book (in English) and watch every movie that deals with the Bosnian War, so I'm not uninformed when I say that this was the cheesiest, lowest grade work that I've seen. Yes, the plot and the characters are fairly accurate depictions of real life events and characters, and that is the ONLY reason I gave this movie two stars. Technically speaking, the best way that this movie can be described is that it is quite similar to a late Soviet era propaganda film in both quality and character development.

Unless you fit into one of the above categories of people, don't waste your time or money. If you want a better anti-war film about the Bosnian War, I'd recommend "No Man's Land" instead. Another native perspective on the conflict is "Shot Through the Heart" (based on the book "The Anti-Sniper") which is a decent movie, but nothing wonderful--a higher quality version of "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame."

If you'd like a wonderful human interest perspective on the Bosnian War, I'd recommend "Savior" and "Harrison's Flowers," although both of which use American characters to carry the storyline. "Welcome to Sarajevo" is one step behind those two--decent, not great, and it uses a Brit to carry the storyline. "Behind Enemy Lines" would be the Hollywood, Ameri-centric take on the war--well made, but not really a lot of insights. All are better than "Pretty Village, Pretty Flame."

Rating:
Summary: Stunning film - a MUST-SEE for all non-balkan viewers
Review: Well, enough was said about this film already, so I will only stress that in this film there are some statements that represent the whole essence of all 90's wars on Balkan.

The first one is about comrade Tito who stole a lot but gave some to people; others just stole and didn't give anything back. Well as a citizen of former Yugoslavia I can only say, in old times living was good on territory of whole Yugoslavia nowadays in Slovenia we live quite good as compared to other not so lucky ex-Yugoslavia citizens. Democracy on Balkan is funny thing, for us (ex-Austro-Hungarian part of Yugoslavia) it is composed of full human-rights specter as opposed to others whose priority is safety of basic human rights such as life an right to a property. Comrade Tito gave us just enough human-rights to satisfy both sides, still after the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991 we all felt betrayed since Yugoslavia was still our country, not somebody else's one even though 90% of Slovenians were for independence.

The other one is about the burning villages (beautiful villages burning nicer than ugly-ones). The statement represents insanity of all parties involved in civil war in Bosnia, why all this killing and suffering as we already know the result, all beautiful will die and at the end the one who will profit are they who didn't event dare to be directly involved... you can figure it out who they are.

At the end you have doubts in who actually started this war politics or just ethnic tensions of individuals. There is no universal answer, just more questions, but one thing is certain, every good and patriotic civil war with flags and roses ends up in a pile of garbage and lots and lots of death and suffering.