CASUALTIES OF WAR (QUO VADIS, AIDA?)

The United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan famously said the tragedy of Srebrenica would "forever haunt the history of the United Nations.”

Eight thousand Muslim men and boys were massacred in 1995 by General Ratko Mladic's Serbian forces in one of the most shocking acts of genocide of the post Second World War era.

25,000-30,000 other people were also displaced despite initially being under the protection of United Nations forces.

Judge Fouad Road would later observe at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague that "a truly terrible massacre of the Muslim population appears to have taken place.

"Thousands of men executed and buried in mass graves, hundreds of mem buried alive, men and women mutilated and slaughtered, children killed before their mothers' eyes, a grandfather forced to eat the liver of his own grandson.

"These are truly scenes from Hell, written on the darkest pages of human history."

Bosnian filmmaker Jasmila Zbanic recreates the horror of Srebrenica in her Oscar nominated movie 'Quo Vadis, Aida?'

Told from the perspective of a former schoolteacher employed by Dutch UN troops as theit translator, it is a gruelling account of survival in the most desperate of circumstances.

Written and directed by Zbanic, it begins with Johan Heldenbergh's Colonel Thom Karremans patiently trying to persuade Ermin Bravo's Mayor of Srebrenica that UN and NATO forces will launch strategic airstrikes against Mladic's troops if they violate a UN ultimatum not to make an incursion into the safe zone declared around the town.

Jasna Djuricic's Aida translates during the meeting as the Mayor becomes increasingly frustrated by Karremans' inability to convince him.

Cut to Mladic's tanks forebodingly rolling into Srebrenica, felling trees and crushing everything in their path.

In the resulting mayhem, the Mayor of Srebrenica is singled out and gunned down.

A woman lies dead outside her home as a pan remains on a wood stove.

Families flee to the UN base, as the Dutch treat the wounded.

Boris Isakovic's Ratko Mladic triumphantly arrives in Srebrenica with a camera crew capturing his every move to allow the Serbs to revel in his great victory.

Aida helps the medics tend to the wounded as some of the refugees are admitted into the base.

However thousands are left outside the perimeter gate, unable to get the protection of the UN troops inside.

In addition to helping the soldiers, Aida juggles concerns for her husband and sons' safety.

She scours the base to see if any of them have made inside and finds Dino Bajrovic's Sejo.

However his father, Izudin Bajrovic's Nihad and brother Boris Ler's Hamdija have been left outside the military compound whose gates have been shut by the Dutch.

Aida bargains with her reluctant Dutch colleagues to have Nihad and Hamdija admitted.

Their entry comes at a price.

Nihad must join a delegation of locals sent along with Colonel Karremans to negotiate their departure from Srebrenica with Mladic when it is clear the UN and NATO airstrikes are not going to materialise.

While they are in negotiations, Bosnian Serb militias turn up at the UN base, insisting they carry out an inspection to identify opposing soldiers among the refugees.

The Dutch initially refuse until Karremans is put on the radio from the negotiations and orders the militia is allowed inside.

Karremans and the delegation negotiate transport out of Srebrenica but when Mladic puts this plan into action, it is clear he intends to separate the men and boys from their wives, mothers, sisters and grandmothers.

Given her sons' involvement in resisting the Serb advance on Srebrenica, Aida fears for their safety - pulling every possible stroke to protect them.

Zbanic brilliantly recreates the horror of the Serbian atrocities and the sense of dread as Mladic flexes his muscle in negotiations with the locals and the equally toothless Dutch UN troops. 

However it is in the little details that 'Quo Vadis, Aida?' really hits home.

The loaves of bread and chocolate handed out by Mladic and his Serb forces to Srebrenica articles may seem initially our of character.

However they are soon exposed as cynical, PR gestures played out for the benefit of the TV camera following the General for audiences back in Serbia.

As Mladic talks the talk of compassion to women on a bus for PR purposes, around the corner Bosnian Muslim men separated from their families Serb are executeD 200 yards from the perimeter fences of the UN base.

In another remarkable moment, a Bosnian Serb soldier recognises Aida at one point as his former schoteacher and after she lies that Hamdija has fled to the woods, he chillingly tells her to send her son his regards.

The birth of a baby on the compound and the budding relationship between two of Aida's fellow translators who cuddle and kiss provide glimpses of humanity amid the panic, terror and despair engulfing those in the compound.

'Quo Vadis, Aida?' is an exemplary exercise in slowly building and releasing tension, with cinematographer Christine A Maier's camera and Jaroslaw Jaminski's editing giving the movie a sense of urgency as the events mostly play out in real time.

Djuricic is superb in the lead role, engaging our sympathies as she witnesses the desperation of friends and neighbors and serves her Dutch colleagues, while frantically putting her own family's interests at heart.

Not only does she excel in the dizzying moments of terror but is hugely affecting in the final act which focuses on the aftermath of the conflict.

Izudin Bajrovic also impresses as her schoolteacher husband Nihad who has been keeping a journal over the course of the three years during the war.

Boris Ler and Dino Bajrovic deliver performances of real heart as Aida's sons.

Heldenbergh is hugely effective as the impotent Dutch Colonial Karremans and Raymond Thiry, Reinout Bussemaker and Teun Luijkx also engage our sympathies as a Dutch Major, an Army medic and a captain who are confronted with the fact that they are powerless and have to make agonising life and death decisions.

Boris Isakovic has the unenviable task of portrayjng Ratko Mladic and does a terrific job as the manipulative military leader.

By the time Zbanic's film reaches its coda, you are punch drunk from the blows the UN forces and the people of Srebrenica have sustained.

And while it is tempting to say 'Quo Vadis, Aida?' should serve as a grim reminder of why the world must not stand idly by in the face of genocide, the fact is genocide continues in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and elsewhere 

Two years before the events of 'Quo Vadis, Aida?,' Steven Spielberg's 'Schindler's List' was lauded for reminding cinemagoers of the horrors of the Holocaust, from its frank depiction of the Nazis' liquidation of the Krakow ghettos to the subsequent slaughter of six million Jewish people in the concentration camps.

Many critics rightly praised Spielberg's film for not soft soaping Nazi barbarism and many hoped it would serve as a reminder of why genocide should not be allowed to happen again.

Yet on Europe's doorstep, as 'Schindler's's List' was garlanded with seven Academy Awards, Serb military leaders were planning ethnic cleansing of Bosnian Muslims and preparing appalling acts of genocide in a sectarian war.

Films like 'Schindler's' List' and 'Quo Vadis, Aida?' do have a vital role to play in stirring our and future generations' conscience.

But never underestimate the depths men will plumb in war, even in the context of hundreds of documentaries and feature films about the savagery meted out to civilians.

One can only hope that world leaders put their conscience first rather than their own financial or political self-interest.

Good luck with achieving that.

('Quo Vadis, Aida?' was released digitally in the UK and Ireland on January 22, 2021)