Welcome to Sarajevo

Welcome To Sarajevo
File:Welcome to Sarajevo Poster.jpg
Directed by	Michael Winterbottom
Produced by	Damian Jones Channel Four Films Miramax
Written by	Frank Cottrell Boyce
Starring	Stephen Dillane Woody Harrelson Marisa Tomei Goran Višnjić Emily Lloyd Kerry Fox Kerry Shale
Music by	Adrian Johnston
Distributed by	Miramax
Release dates	6 November 1997 (1997-11-06)
Running time	103 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English, Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian
Budget	US$9,000,000

Welcome to Sarajevo is a British war film released in 1997. It is directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay is by Frank Cottrell Boyce and is based on the book Natasha's Story by Michael Nicholson.

Plot

In 1992, ITN reporter Michael Henderson (Stephen Dillane) travels to Sarajevo, the besieged capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He meets American star journalist Jimmy Flynn (Woody Harrelson) on the chase for the most exciting stories and pictures. Henderson and Flynn have friendly arguments and differences in the intervals between reporting. They stay at the Holiday Inn, which was the primary hotel for the press in Sarajevo during the siege. After a previous translator proves corrupt and inept, ITN hires Risto (Goran Višnjić) to be Henderson's translator. Their work permits them blunt and unobstructed views of the suffering of the people of Sarajevo. The situation changes when Henderson makes a report from an orphanage located on the front lines (Ljubica Ivezic Orphanage) in which two hundred children live in desperate conditions. After increasingly brutal attacks fail to make the lead story in the UK, Henderson makes the orphanage his lead story to try to bring full attention to the war.

When American aid worker Nina (Marisa Tomei) organises a UN-sanctioned bus-borne evacuation of several orphaned Sarajevan children to Italy, Henderson convinces Nina to include a Bosniak girl from the orphanage, Emira (Emira Nušević), to whom Henderson had made a promise to evacuate. Nina knows this is an illegal act – Emira's mother is still alive and signed no papers authorising the evacuation – but the orphanage director allows it because of the desperate circumstances. Henderson and his cameraman accompany the evacuation under the pretense of covering it as a news story.

Despite a UN escort, Bosnian Serbs hinder the evacuation at several points along its route. The final harassment is the worst – a group of Chetniks halt the bus, forcibly disembark the Bosnian Serb children and put them on their armed lorry, presumably to repatriate them.

When Henderson finally makes it to London with Emira, Emira quickly becomes a member of Henderson's family in a comfortable London home. After an ambiguous interval of perhaps 100 days, Henderson receives word from his former producer, who is still in Sarajevo, that Emira's mother wants Emira back. Henderson returns to Sarajevo, now riven not only by the siege but also by internal organised crime, and seeks out Risto, who has become a Bosnian-Herzegovinian soldier. Henderson recruits Risto to find Emira's mother. They nearly succeed, but the unstable situation unravels around them and they are forced to retreat. When Risto is killed by a sniper in his own home, Henderson falls back on Zeljko (Drazen Sivak), a concierge at the Holiday Inn who Henderson had helped in previous Sarajevo tours. Zeljko negotiates the streets and road-blocks that lead to Emira's mother. As prelude to signing the adoption papers, she outlines the reasons she wants Emira back. She cannot in good conscience bring Emira back to Sarajevo, though, and she signs the papers.

A running joke in the movie is the designation by a UN official that Sarajevo was only the 14th worst crisis in the world. In the middle of the movie, Harun, a cellist friend of Risto, says that he would play a concert on the streets of Sarajevo once it is designated the worst place on Earth. Though he acknowledges the danger, he claims that "the people will die happily listening to my music." The movie ends with Harun holding a "concert of peace" on a hill overlooking Sarajevo, playing his cello to hundreds of Sarajevans. Among the attendees are Henderson, Flynn and several children from the orphanage. Henderson gives Harun a sad smile; the concert is beautiful, but it also means that Sarajevo had, indeed, become the worst place on Earth.

The closing credits say that Emira still lives in England.

Cast

• Stephen Dillane – Michael Henderson
• Woody Harrelson – Jimmy Flynn
• Marisa Tomei – Nina
• Emira Nušević – Emira
• Kerry Fox – Jane Carson
• Goran Višnjić – Risto Bavić
• James Nesbitt – Gregg
• Emily Lloyd – Annie McGee
• Igor Džambazov – Jacket
• Gordana Gadžić – Mrs. Savić
• Juliet Aubrey – Helen Henderson
• Drazen Šivak – Željko
• Vesna Orel – Munira Hodžić
• Davor Janjić – Dragan
• Vladimir Jokanović – Emira's Uncle
• Senad Bašić – Svercer
• Ines Fančović – Woman shouting at bread queue

Style

Michael Winterbottom portrays the events with brutality. In the opening sequence, there is a sniper attack on a wedding procession. Other shocking sequences include Henderson stumbling upon a massacre at a farm-house, a Bosnian-Serb officer nonchalantly executing groups of Bosniaks and Henderson's arrival in the immediate aftermath of the first of the Markale Massacres.

Shot just a few months after the war on locations in Sarajevo and Croatia, the film uses real ruins and war debris to give the film a feeling of authenticity, and many scenes of the characters witnessing and reporting on street carnage were intercut with actual video footage of the events.

Soundtrack

Two widely known pieces of music were used in the film, among the others. The first one is "Don't Worry Be Happy" by Bobby McFerrin. It was used in ironical sense, since in the background, real scenes of the siege of Sarajevo were shown, with people being wounded by bombs, blood everywhere on the streets etc. The second widely known piece is "Adagio in G minor" by Remo Giazotto, which is based on a fragment from a Sonata in G minor by Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni and has been used in many films and advertisements. House of Love's "Shine On" (Creation, 1987) and Stone Roses' "I Wanna Be Adored" (Silvertone, 1989) were among the hip and colourful English independent rock classics that contrasted sharply with the dark barbarism affecting the people of Sarajevo, in a sense continuing the use of the song in a war movie the way 1960s rock anthems were employed in such Vietnam War movies as Apocalypse Now or Platoon, but updating the anthems to those closer to the era the film is portrayed in.

Award Nominations

The film made its world premiere 1997-05-09 at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. It was nominated for the Golden Palm and for the Golden Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival. It was awarded a "Special Recognition for Excellence in Filmmaking" by the National Board of Review (USA) during the 69th National Board of Review Awards (1997).

External links

• Welcome to Sarajevo at Rotten Tomatoes
• Welcome to Sarajevo at IMDb