Pretty Village Pretty Flame
Directed by Srdjan Dragojevic
Sharmill Films
Opening at Dendy Theatres in November
Review by Jon Land
This is a gripping film which highlights the senselessness of war. While it does not seek to explain the politics of the events which led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, it effectively portrays the role that national chauvinism has played in driving a wedge between people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.
The screenplay for Pretty Village Pretty Flame is based upon the experiences of Vanja Bulic, who was one of a group of Serbian fighters trapped in a disused tunnel in Bosnia in the spring of 1992. Without food or water, they held out for 10 days, their numbers gradually dwindling. Only three managed to escape and make it back to Serb-held territory.
The film starts with a mock newsreel report of the opening of "the Tunnel of Brotherhood and Unity" somewhere in rural Bosnia in 1971. It sets the scene for the horror that is to follow.
The tunnel is located in a mountainous pass near a village, where the main characters, Milan (played by Dragan Bjelogrlic, who is also one of the film's producers) and his best friend Halil (Nikola Pejakovic), live. They are terrified by the tunnel as children, and it is to seal their fate as adults.
The two friends, Milan, a Bosnian Serb, and Halil, a Bosnian Muslim, open a small garage just before the outbreak of war. Their seemingly uncomplicated lives are thrown into chaos once the conflict begins.
Milan and his unit become trapped in the old tunnel by a detachment under Halil's command. From a bed in hospital, Milan recounts the ordeal of the tunnel — and his life before the war — through flashbacks.
Dragojevic creates some superb vignettes which capture the changes in the lives of Milan, Halil and the other soldiers as they become drawn into the war and hysteria created by the propaganda of Slobodan Milosevic.
The role of women in the film is somewhat stereotypical — the flirting nurses in the hospital and the naive US news reporter trapped with the soldiers in the tunnel, for example. This is the main weakness of the film.
However, the issue of rape and its impact upon women is taken up, and there is a chilling scene in which Milan's former teacher enters the tunnel after being abused by her captors. Milan and his comrades are torn between emotions of care and helplessness, fearing that she has been booby-trapped with explosives to flush them from the tunnel.
Pretty Village Pretty Flame is not a Hollywood gloss-and-glorification type war film: it is very much the opposite. There are scenes of wry and darkly humorous incidents which leave you squirming with revulsion.
Dragojevic explains the intention of his film: "I will not allow you to feel those sweet safe emotions, delicate sympathy and absolute belief that goodness must prevail. What I'm trying to prove ... is that not everything is so black and white or as simple as you'd like them to be."
Filmed almost entirely in the war zone (and almost provoking an incident with UN forces stationed nearby), this is a compelling film which is unlikely to get the acclaim it deserves. Don't miss it!