There are two conditions you must accept before we proceed. First, you must be willing to submerge yourself in the hard facts of the Bosnian War: the merciless ethnic cleansing of Bosniaks at the hands of Serb forces, men and women separated and taken to camps or killed, women systematically raped, psychological torture, and genocide. Second, you must forget everything you’ve read or seen in the tabloid magazines about Angelina Jolie.
Done? Okay, the story concerns Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) and Danijel (Goran Kostic), who we meet in a Bosnian nightclub, circa 1992, as they share a first dance—which is interrupted by a bomb blast. Fast-forward a few months and we’re at the onset of war. Serbian forces are securing territory in Eastern Bosnia, rounding up men and women or just shooting them for kicks. Ajla is herded to a camp where Danijel has been promoted via nepotism to captain in the Army of Republika Srpska. Here he somewhat protects her while he’s not out drawing crosshairs on the enemy and failing to pull the trigger (until he doesn’t). Upon the news that he’s being transferred, Danijel tells Ajla how to escape, which she does, joining a small band of hidden refugees. (As Honey would have you believe, the opposition was nothing more than a ragtag network of such groups until the UN finally interceded in 1995.)
More than two decades after then secretary of state James Baker famously said of the war, “We don’t have a dog in this fight,” Jolie, who both wrote and directed Honey, clearly does. But to her credit, she largely avoids cliché throughout the film—it’s even scripted in native tongue, with English subtitles!—which, combined with the subject matter, makes for rather refreshing Hollywood product.
Nevertheless, critics are getting all huffy that this is an activist film and therefore not art (an absurd notion to begin with), but fuck it—if a vanity project/Trojan Horse of Reality driven by the name of a Hollywood star is what it takes to smack sense into some heads around here, let’s open the gate. 
And kudos to Jolie for flying the the face of all our trashzine-induced misonceptions about her.
The secretary of state was Madeline, Clinton was in office, and just like she did in Rwanda, she didn’t do shit. I just saw the film and it was amazing as it gave us a view of that war from women, who suffered horrendous atrocities at the hands of the Serbs who have basically escaped prosecution for those war crimes. The film is brutal, but clearly it could have benefited from a military advisor, the way that war was painted made the Bosniaks look like they didn’t fight except for a few bomb throwers. Though NATO basically allowed this to happen by preventing the Bosnian army from getting much needed weapons , the Bosnian army, though poorly armed eventually led offensives that pushed the Serbs back to the Drina river. The Bosnian army fought without much help and the UN sat whilencivilians were killed. NATO eventually woke up and finally bombed the shit out of Belgrade and the SERBS were forced to sit down and negotiate in Dayton. It’s still tense there and unfortunately the SERB savagery is notngoing to be forgotten and peace keepers will leave one day. maybe Im wrong but everything gets played again and again. this is an important film more people should watch it
Madeleine Albright wasn’t secretary of state until 1997, but I agree with the other things you say.
So it was the other guy? Cristopher something? I know it wasnt Baker. He was under Reagan and Bush Sr.
Baker was secretary of state until August ’92, and he gave the quote in ’91. He was succeeded by Lawrence Eagleburger.
youre right, but I think I was confused on the dates ( memory is rusty) because it was during the Clinton years that the failure to intervene and when word of the Serbian genocide got out. Warren Christopher did admit his failure-http://bosniagenocide.wordpress.com/2011/04/05/us-admits-failure-to-halt-the-bosnian-genocide/
the war wasn’t as messy as they tried to paint it in the media. it was pretty clear after the war with Serbia and Croatia ended. It was basically the Serb army and the Bosnian Serbs killing and destroying at will. no the bosnians were not saints but the majority of the atrocities against civilians and women specially were conducted by Serbs. but in the end at least they bombed the crap out of Belgrade and bombed their positions in Bosnia Hercegovinia. I have no doubt that the Serbs would have killed all or most of the Bosniaks if they had finally taken Sarajevo and rest of the cities.
Well they didn’t really bomb the shit out of Belgrade…NATO took out the Chinese Embassy and 2 bridges in Belgrade, plus the bridge in Novi Sad. You forget that you also still had the war on 2 fronts, between the Yugoslav and Bosnian army in the east and the Croatian and Bosnian army in the west. (ex: Mostar) It did get messy, it got very messy esp along the borders.
I think the Bosnian offensive was working. They should have pushed them back than negotiated, though, the Croats were providing artillery support, they pulled out when Dayton started.
In show business YOU CAN NEVER GO WRONG trashing the Serbs. It sells well.
Positively PREPOSTEROUS & LUDICROUS!
THIS IS A SHEER PROPAGANDA FILM!
White Angel to Dark Angel:
Angelina Lazar to Angelina Jolie
From the Center of the World Across all Oceans, Airways & Cyberspace.
This is an:
O P E N L E T T E R
For TRUTH’S SAKE, for the LOVE OF GOD on Behalf of Orthodox Christian Serbs in Bosnia
Response of Angelina “of Serbia” to Jolie’s scandalous PROPAGANDA FILM, “In the Land of Blood & Honey”, villainizing Orthodox Christian Serbs blasphemously and her calling for the abolishment of Republika Srpska in Bosnia.
Wake Up, O, “Woman in Black”!
O, illuminati mind-controlled slave, Angelina Jolie, “qui n’est pas tres jolie, qui ne sait pas la verite!” . . . Wake up from your deep sleep! Wake up from your tranced state! Wake up, and perceive the truth, reality, what is, and do not allow yourself, anymore, to be used as an illuminati pawn to perpetuate the propaganda of backstage world powers who project their own deceitful propaganda as though it were the blatant truth and actual reality!
Woman in black, you are deceived and unenlightened, uninformed and unknowledgable in these matters! You play the part of some global would-be “ambassador”, yet know not the actualities that lay behind the agenda written for you, scripted for you, laid out before you and most definitively orchestrated for you!
O, miserable plight of yours….. You do not even understand how they use you in all the films you are portrayed as actress in. But no, that is not even acting, per se. That is your tranced out state, your programmed alter of the day, being played out to the max . . . .
PLEASE SEE FULL LETTER HERE:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78854212/Wake-…
+ + +
Angelina Lazar
Spiritual & Political Ideologue
Defender of Human Rights & Peacemaker
W O R L D W I D E
Positively PREPOSTEROUS & LUDICROUS!
THIS IS A SHEER PROPAGANDA FILM!
White Angel to Dark Angel:
Angelina Lazar to Angelina Jolie
From the Center of the World Across all Oceans, Airways & Cyberspace.
This is an:
O P E N L E T T E R
For TRUTH’S SAKE, for the LOVE OF GOD on Behalf of Orthodox Christian Serbs in Bosnia
Response of Angelina “of Serbia” to Jolie’s scandalous PROPAGANDA FILM, “In the Land of Blood & Honey”, villainizing Orthodox Christian Serbs blasphemously and her calling for the abolishment of Republika Srpska in Bosnia.
Wake Up, O, “Woman in Black”!
O, illuminati mind-controlled slave, Angelina Jolie, “qui n’est pas tres jolie, qui ne sait pas la verite!” . . . Wake up from your deep sleep! Wake up from your tranced state! Wake up, and perceive the truth, reality, what is, and do not allow yourself, anymore, to be used as an illuminati pawn to perpetuate the propaganda of backstage world powers who project their own deceitful propaganda as though it were the blatant truth and actual reality!
Woman in black, you are deceived and unenlightened, uninformed and unknowledgable in these matters! You play the part of some global would-be “ambassador”, yet know not the actualities that lay behind the agenda written for you, scripted for you, laid out before you and most definitively orchestrated for you!
O, miserable plight of yours….. You do not even understand how they use you in all the films you are portrayed as actress in. But no, that is not even acting, per se. That is your tranced out state, your programmed alter of the day, being played out to the max . . . .
PLEASE SEE FULL LETTER HERE:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/78854212/Wake-…
+ + +
Angelina Lazar
Spiritual & Political Ideologue
Defender of Human Rights & Peacemaker
W O R L D W I D E