This blog is on the novel The Cellist of Sarajevo and the movie Welcome to Sarajevo both being depictions of the Siege of Sarajevo. The siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 5, 1992 to February 29, 1996 with a death toll totaling 10,000 including 1,500 children. The worst years were the first two. Multiple mass- Mass killings of civilians and structural damage to nearly every building in the city left its demoralized inhabitants in dire straights. Serbs forces targeted hospitals, schools, and public areas which placed the citizens in a medieval state of living. The Cellist of Sarajevo is a fictional telling of three different peoples, Kenan, Dragan, and Arrow, perspectives of the miserable life in the city under siege. Their stories center around a Bosnian cellist who played in the same place at 4:00 pm everyday for 22 days in memory of 22 innocents killed by a mortar bomb while in line for bread. This was an actual cellist born of Bosnia, Vedran Smajlović, who would play in the ruined buildings of Sarajevo during the siege. Smajlović escaped the city in 1993. The movie, Welcome to Sarajevo follows two reporters who live in the city during the siege and attempt to tell the story to the world. The characters have different objectives and motives but work toward the same goal. Michael Henderson, an ITN reporter attempts to convey the story through the images of an orphanage while American star reporter Jimmy Flynn tries to capture the big picture. They do this for different reasons but the ultimate goal is to tell the world about what was happening in Sarajevo. For selfish motives or selfless motives, the world needed to know about the horrors of the siege and they were the only people there to tell it. In reality, the siege was mostly ignored by the media, and the world left the situation resolve itself. The movie shows some of the dehumanization that was occurring in the siege. The book also paints a picture of the citizens of Sarajevo's horrid daily lives. This type of dehumanization is only found in genocides or war. These stories stress the idea that we must respect our fellow man and come to his/her id when needed.
I think that you make a good point about the two reporters trying to use different tactics in order to inform the public about the siege. although I thought that they made Woody Harrelson's Character came off as sleazy in the film even though he was the only reporter willing to do something at the start of the film when the mother of the bride was shot. I think that the film did a pretty good job of showing that the world just did not care because as they said, "It would be different if it was muslims shooting christians." You mentioned the death tolls that were included in the book but I wondered if the totals that were given at the end of the film were more accurate, they were certainly higher.
ReplyDelete