Rumors that it would focus on a Bosnian Muslim woman who falls in love with her Serb captor earned Angelina Jolie’s first effort as a filmmaker, In The Land of Blood and Honey, some early controversy—and understandably so. Imagine a movie about a Jewish woman held in a concentration camp who subsequently develops feelings for her Nazi warden, who reciprocates, and is thus conflicted about his place in the war. It isn’t impossible, just improbable.
Thankfully not the crude romance it was rumored to be, Blood and Honey actually strives to be true to its people and places. Jolie used regional actors, and the dialogue is in Bosnian. Hungary, where the film was shot, is a near approximation of Bosnia, though it subtly lacks in local color and feel (too much Austro-Hungarian and not enough Ottoman). But it is the intention here that matters, and such quibbles are minor.
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