‘Quo Vadis, Aida?’: Brutal and Harrowing Depiction of Bosnian Genocide [Capsule]

Bosnia, July 11th 1995. “Quo Vadis, Aida” is director Jasmina Zbanic’s story of U.N. translator Aida (Jasna Djuricicin) in the small town of Srebrenica during the Serbia-Bosnia conflict. The horrors shown onscreen are impossible to shake, as a Serbian army takes over the town, threatening the thousands of citizens looking for shelter in the UN camp — that includes Aida’s father and two brothers. As an insider, Aida has access to crucial information that leads her to desperately try and rescue her family from near-certain death. She knows the international community, including the United Nations, are turning the other way and complicit in the atrocities that may occur. The resulting mass murder has been described as the worst European genocide in the post-war period. Featuring an indelible performance by Djuricic, although stagnant at first, the film slowly builds its power with each ensuing scene until its devastating final crescendo. The subject is horrifying, but the tension relentlessly watchable. This is a brutal and shocking movie, but don’t discount it as historical revisionism. If anything, “Quo Vadis, Aida?” is an important film because it lays out the truths of this genocide in such a matter-of-fact way, and that includes, most especially, the institutional and international community’s indifference. They are as much to blame as any Serb.

SCORE: B+