Yes, No, Maybe So: "In the Land of Blood and Honey"
Friday, October 21, 2011 at 10:45PM 
A few readers have expressed dismay that I never talk about Angelina Jolie's directorial debut. There have even been suggestions that I have it in for Angelina. If by "in" you mean LOVE HER, than yes, I most definitely have it in for her. She once walked right past me and made eye contact (in a non-professional setting -- i.e. i wasn't reporting on anything and she wasn't promoting anything) and I absolutely treasure the memory. The reasons for not covering her film before are several but dull and almost all of them boil down to two things:
1. This is not the kind of blog that fawns endlessly on every detail of pre production and filming and multiple marketing events before a movie is released. The Film Experience prefers actual movies -- even old ones (gasp!) -- to theoretical and future movies, as out of fashion as that may be on the internet.
2. I really didn't expect it to come out this year!
I never plan to change my ways on #1 but I have totally been proven wrong about #2 so let's do a Yes No Maybe So
IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY
YES
- Looks sensitively directed, shot, edited*, scored ** and acted (from both of the leads. Some of those looks just break your heart). Sensitivity is something such films need in abundance lest they hit the atrocity notes too hard. War films -- particularly modern war films -- tend to wallow so much in the atrocity that it's almost desensitizing in addition to being just fucking depressing. Our capacity for violence is worrisome as is the capacity for watching it and than just going about your daily business like it's nothing.
* it's impossible to tell anything about a films editing from a trailer. We know this but it's still easy to pretend that trailers have all the same qualities as their movies.
** it's usually impossible to tell anything about the way a film is scored, too... since most trailers don't use their final score. But the temp music they were using was good.
NO
- n/a
MAYBE SO
- The dialogue is very straightforward, with characters speaking themes and situations aloud. That's not always inappropriate in heightened settings like war where subtext generally becomes text, everything being stripped down to its most primal parts... but will it be too on the nose?
- The trailer works well with its pinpoint focus on the Lover as the Other but it hits the note repeatedly. This begs the question of what else there is to the movie and can a once passionate love affair, destroyed by fear and suspicion, be enough to sustain the whole narrative?
"In the Land of Blood and Honey"
Are you a yes no or maybe so? My mind flashed briefly to Shot Through the Heart that Linus Roache television movie: anyone remember that one?
Do you see Oscar potential here? I'm doubtful mostly (and cynically) due to the lack of Hollywood glamour on screen and the lack of American characters. Many well meaning foreign war films are made each year and Oscar rarely takes notice.
What would you like Angelina Jolie to do for an encore?
