What Angelina Jolie has accomplished in “In the Land of Blood and Honey” is both impressive and unexpected. But because the task she set for herself is so difficult, it is not quite enough.

Though not appearing on screen, Jolie functions as writer, director and co-producer of a film with subject matter so painful and emotionally complex it would be a challenge for even the most experienced creator.

Not surprisingly for someone serious about involvement with humanitarian causes, Jolie has set “Blood and Honey” in the violent maelstrom of the former Yugoslavia during the war in Bosnia that lasted between 1992 and 1995. It was a war of militias against civilians, a conflict that involved brutal ethnic cleansing and so many tens of thousands of women raped that it became the first time the act was prosecuted under international law as a stand-alone crime against humanity.

Making the situation even more agonizing was that all this brutality and death happened between ethnic groups that had learned to live together in peace, frequently intermarried and turned their cities into models of diversity. Then ultra-nationalist politicians gained power and the nightmares came.

Though “Blood and Honey” was largely shot in Hungary, one of the most impressive things Jolie has accomplished is giving her film a palpable sense of authenticity, both in terms of acting and fidelity to events. She has used local actors, only one of whom (the veteran Rade Serbedzija) will be familiar to domestic audiences, and has shot in the local language, which, in an indication of how fragmented things still remain, is now referred to as Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian or BCS.

“Blood and Honey’s” story radiates out from a personal relationship between a man and woman, two Bosnians with different backgrounds who were just starting to form a romantic bond when it was still OK for them to do so. Danijel (Goran Kostic) is a police officer with a Serbian background, while Ajla (Zana Marjanovic) is a Muslim artist who lives with her sister Lejla (Vanesa Glodjo) and her sister’s baby. We see them enjoying a dance club date, and then the war intrudes and everything changes.

Source : http://urbanchristiannews.com