Grbavica: The Land Of My Dreams

Directed by Jasmila Zbanic

Winner of last year’s Golden Bear at Berlin, Grbavica is 32-year-old writer/director Jasmila Zbanic’s debut feature. Its unpronounceable title is the film’s setting, a neighborhood in Sarajevo (released in the U.K. by the more approachable and suggestive Esma’s Secret).

The film follows a single mother (Esma) and her daughter (Sara) in present-day Bosnia, struggling in the aftermath of the Yugoslav wars. When 12-year-old Sara (Luna Mijovic in her acting debut) comes home with news of a class trip, she asks for her father’s death certificate to prove he was a “shaheed,” a war martyr, which waives the trip’s fees. When her mother fails to produce the documents, but instead a series of excuses, we learn the truth of “Esma’s Secret.”

Unfortunately for the film and its subject, Grbavica would work better—and be much more potent—as a documentary. It’s a powerful story—without question worth telling—but, as it stands, Zbanic’s film lacks inventiveness and bite, too often feeling clichéd, sentimental and obvious. It is content to see itself just as a victim’s story, unequivocally worthy of its audience’s pity.

Though not without a few moving moments, including an exceptional performance by Mirjana Karanovic as Sara’s mother Esma, Grbavica treats its characters and subject matter dangerously close to that of a Lifetime “women’s picture.” While hard to resist the bait, ultimately the film’s ambitions towards the pathetic and heart-rending are manipulative and simplistic. It is played too straight, without either the style or political critique to add some necessary depth. Grbavica asks its audience to do nothing but feel bad, which does a disservice to the real-life people these characters are supposed to represent.