Mafia, on Viaplay

Radovan Jakovic was sort of the Swedish Whitey Bulger. Det. Gunn Thorngren rather ill-advisedly facilitated his criminal ascension by arresting the rivals he informed on. At least she realized the extent of her mishandled informant-handling earlier than the FBI. Arguably, Jakovic was also a Serbian government employee, because they supplied the contraband he smuggled into Sweden. Balkan wars complicate Swedish organized crime in lead writer Axel Stjarne’s six-episode Mafia, which premiers today on Viaplay.

Before the fall of Communism, the Yugoslav government offered its criminals a choice, domestic prison or immigration to Sweden (where many Iron Curtain defectors re-settled), to work for the Yugoslav mob. In exchange for carry out assassinations at the request of the UDBA secret police, the state supplied contraband cigarettes, which were very profitable on the Swedish black and gray markets.

Jakovic correctly identified an opportunity to move into this lucrative business. However, Valter Sokol, an ardent Croation nationalist, controls the distribution. “Boris,” the local UDBA station chief, would like to cut him out of the business, but he needs someone with sufficient standing, like Jakovic’s reckless boss Drago. However, if Drago gets caught red-handed, Jakovic’s childhood friend Goran would naturally succeed him.

Unfolding over the course of the 1990s, Mafia compounds the organized crime intrigue with the unfolding power struggle and tragedy in the Balkans. Ironically, it also exposes the folly of the sin taxes passed by Sweden’s failing socialist government, which raised the price of cigarettes exponentially (and passed with behind-the-scenes lobbying support from Jakovic’s organization).

The Yugoslavian UDBA angle definitely differentiates Mafia from other mob dramas. However, the portrayal of Jakovic searching and failing to find family through his mafia ties evokes familiar Godfather-esque themes, but Stjarne and lead actor Peshang Rad execute them with intelligence and conviction.

Cinequest ’22: Here Be Dragons

David Locke wanted to see justice done by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), but not so surprisingly, he finds the UN-chartered organization is stymied by politics (imagine that). It is personal for him, because a Serbian war criminal killed the woman he loved. When he gets a lead on her killer, the ICTY is too busy winding down its mission and patting itself on the back, so he goes it alone in director-screenwriter Alastair Newton Brown’s Here Be Dragons, which screens during this year’s Cinequest Film & VR Festival.

While stationed as a UN “Peace-keeper” during the Yugoslav Wars, Locke came face to face with Ivan Novak, just when he was dumping the bodies of his girlfriend’s village. Yet, he was ordered to stand down, because his unit was insufficiently armed and was only authorized to conduct a prisoner exchange. As the top investigator for the ICTY, he believed Novak had been killed. However, just as the ICTY announces its dissolution, Locke is approached by his girlfriend’s brother, Emir Ibrahimovic, the only survivor of the massacre.

Now a wealthy Swedish industrialist, Ibrahimovic has information regarding Novak’s whereabouts. It turns out, he is living openly under an assumed name in Belgrade. To add insult to injury, he currently runs PTSD and reconciliation workshops for survivors of the civil war.

HBD is directly rooted in the events of the early 1990s and 2017, but in terms of tone, it is very much akin to some of the anti-hero thrillers of the 1970s. Brown seems to have a bit of a man-crush of the lead actor (and producer) Nathan Clark Sapsford stalking through the dark streets of Belgrade in his half-overcoat, but to be fair, he is pretty cool looking.

Sapsford doesn’t merely brood. He plays Locke so tightly-wound, he could snap at any moment. Yet, he is not an empty existential protag. Throughout it all, Brown makes it clear the man always holds to some notion of justice. In contrast, Slobodan Bestic’s Novak is a surprisingly subtle and challenging figure, who tries to literally embody the notion that healing comes through the passage of time, rather than cathartic retribution. That is literally what his counseling argues.

An Ordinary Man: Ben Kingsley Plays the War Criminal

Arguably, Ratko Mladic was a terrible general, but he still won the war. In terms of military tactics, his strategic sense was highly dubious, but he was lethally efficient when it came to genocide. Unfortunately, the West still has no stock remedy for ethnic cleansing, so it often ends up codifying the results, as it did with the Dayton Accords. “The General” is transparently based on Mladic and he sleeps just fine at night. Time might be finally running out for the fugitive war criminal, but do not expect any apologies in Brad Silberling’s An Ordinary Man (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

There is no question The General is modeled on Mladic, right down to the daughter who tragically committed suicide out of shame for her father’s atrocities. He still lives rather comfortably in safe houses, thanks to a network of former comrades, but he must conduct himself in a more secretive manner. Of course, convincing him of that will be easier said than done.

As luck would have it, The General finds something to keep him distracted. That would be Tanja, the previous tenant’s cleaning lady. She has the misfortune of barging in on The General, who promptly humiliates her, both out of paranoia and for fun. Yet, she accepts a full-time servant position, because she recognizes the ethnic cleanser and generally subscribe to his world-view.

Ordinary Man is a very unsettling film, because it takes you into The General’s unrepentant, fanatical head-space, without delivering any decisive moral comeuppance to assure us that all is right with the world after all. To make things even more discomfiting, Sir Ben Kingsley plays The General with seductively sinister élan. It is easy to see how he could convince average people to commit horrific crimes. Although Hera Hilmar is rather naïve and innocent looking as Tanja, she is such an impressionable empty vessel, it is also rather chilling to see her getting filled up with hate.

For the record, Silberling is the same director who helmed Casper, A Series of Unfortunate Events, and Land of the Lost. It is nice to know he has a dark side too—and is Ordinary Man ever dark. The Belgrade locations definitely heighten the ominous vibe. However, these characters and the environment they inhabit are so amoral, it is hard to get what Silberling might have hoped audiences would have taken away from the film.

Nevertheless, there is no denying the power and accomplishment of Kingsley work (which would be interesting to watch paired up with Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, in case anyone is planning a Kingsley retrospective). Recommended for sophisticated viewers already well-grounded in 1990s and early 2000s Balkan history, An Ordinary Man opens tomorrow (4/13) in New York, at the Village East.

A Perfect Day: Somewhere in the Balkans

International relief workers finally get the M*A*S*H treatment. These Aid Across Borders volunteers hook-up and joke around, but they truly want to help the civilian population that has been so traumatized by the Balkan War. However, a relatively simple task will escalate into a life-and-death crisis in Fernando León de Aranoa’s English language debut, A Perfect Day (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

A rotund corpse has been dumped in a Balkan village’s only potable drinking well. Mambrú, a veteran Spanish field worker and his local fixer Damir were on the case, but their rope broke. Their gonzo colleague B and the naïve rookie Sophie were nearby, but they are fresh out of rope. Unfortunately, the nearest general store has plenty of rope, but it happens to be in a different ethnic conclave. It is pretty clear the locals were either responsible for the body in the first place or are protecting those who put it there.

Thus begins an increasingly absurd and dangerous quest for rope. Frankly, it is probably the first time B has been so determined to find hemp in this form. Of course, the UN (the Blue Helmets) are not much help. Unfortunately, the Aid Across Borders bureaucracy does not understand the boots-on-the-ground realities either. Believing the truce renders their services unnecessary, they have dispatched Mambrú’s former mistress Katya to write a report that confirms their judgement. Whether she likes it or not, she is about to join the mismatched quartet in their mad dash for rope—and it is rather pressing. If they can remove it within twenty-four hours, the purification process will be relatively non-invasive, but if the well is befouled any longer than that, it will have to be closed.

Maybe they would have a better chance of finding rope if they could actually identify which country they were in. All we are told is that it takes place somewhere in the Balkans circa 1995. It sure looks like Bosnia and the sinister folks who refuse to share their rope definitely bring to mind the Bosnia Serbs, but the mealy-mouth nature of León de Aranoa’s screenplay (based on a novel by Paula Farias, former head of the Spanish operational section of Doctors Without Borders) is rather annoying on that score. That is a shame, because the film has real bite when it conveys a sense of war’s random cruelty and the cluelessness of the UN forces.

The NGO’s international constituency allows León de Aranoa to assemble an interesting cast that probably would not otherwise have a chance to work together. Tim Robbins arguably does his funniest work since The Player as the defiantly rude B. Mélanie Thierry’s guileless Sophie serves as an effective audience proxy when confronting the disillusioning realities of war. Naturally, Bernicio Del Toro plays Mambrú the ladies’ man, because what woman could resist a piece of man candy like him, right? Of course, Olga Kurylenko’s sex appeal is better established, but she plays Katya as a refreshingly smart and assertive professional. However, the real discovery is the Bosnian Fedja Stukan, who basically steals the show as the salt-of-the-earth but decidedly vulnerable Danir.

There are some wickedly clever scenes and some depressingly bitter ironies in APD. If León de Aranoa had not decided to bend over backwards to avoid offending anyone, it could have been a definitive film on the Balkan War. Instead, it is a good film rather than a great one, primarily for the way it captures the very real dangers (including landmines and dubious paramilitary checkpoints) faced by international relief workers. Recommended for those who already have a solid grounding on the 1990s conflict, A Perfect Day opens this Friday (1/15) in New York, at the IFC Center.

Smash & Grab: On the Trail of the Pink Panthers

This international ring of jewel thieves was brought to you by the bureaucrats at the EU.  It is a complicated story, but Havana Marking has her sources.  Using animation to protect their anonymity, a handful of former members explain the inner workings of their loosely structured organization in Marking’s Smash & Grab: the Story of the Pink Panthers (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York at Film Forum.

Marking is careful not to unduly glamorize the high-end jewelry thieves that came to be known as the Pink Panthers, in honor of the Blake Edwards franchise.  Yes, they always avoided bloodshed on their jobs, at least so far.  Yet, they have always been armed robbers, rushing into each score loaded for bear.  They have never exactly been Robin Hoods either, simply divvying up the proceeds from each job amongst themselves.

These were professionals, who invested significant time and money to meticulously plan each heist.  Of course, they were not just men.  Every caper started with a woman—a striking femme fatale, who would not look out of place trying on expensive jewelry as she cased the joint.  Marking talks at length with one such scout.  She goes by the name “Lela” for the purposes of the film and like many Panthers, she hails from the former Yugoslavia.

The shadowy group’s roots lie in the Balkans’ tragic war years.  With Serb Socialist Party boss Slobodan Milosevic stoking the fires of ethnic hatred, the EU responded by imposing a punitive economic embargo on the entire Yugoslavia.  Apparently, Brussels hoped the widespread suffering would appeal to Milosevic’s heretofore unseen compassion, compelling him to behave better.  Instead, it gave rise to an extensive black market, where future Pink Panthers learned the essentials of illicit commerce.

Reportedly, the Panthers largely consist (or consisted) of Serbians and Montenegrins, like “Mike,” Marking’s star witness.  However, she presents of conscientiously balanced portrait of the various Balkan nationalities involved.  In fact, Milena Miletic, a Serbian journalist and veteran of the anti-Milosevic protests, is clearly one of Marking’s most sympathetic and authoritative talking heads.

Even though Marking’s animated interviews with Mike and Lela look somewhat similar to those roto-scoped Charles Schwab commercials, they still serve as an effective counterpoint to the very real surveillance footage of the Panthers getting down to business.  Unlike most true crime programming, there is nothing lurid or exploitative about Smash.  Nevertheless, Marking’s eye for ironic imagery adds a bit of dash to the proceedings.

Leanly constructed and briskly paced, Marking’s film gives viewers a vivid sense of the scope and tick-tock professionalism of the Panthers’ operations. Fascinating and often darkly comic, Smash is a good documentary for viewers who do not ordinarily enjoy documentaries.  Recommended for popular audiences, Smash opens this Wednesday (7/31) at New York’s Film Forum.

Storm

Corruption and ineffectiveness have been the hallmarks of the United Nations, so why should the International Criminal Tribunal be any better? After the UN stood idly by, content to watch as the Bosnians were massacred, at least The Hague is trying to prosecute the perpetrators. Sadly, that effort is not going well in Hans-Christian Schmid’s Storm (trailer here), opening Friday in New York.

Hannah Maynard is prosecuting a Bosnian-Serb accused of war crimes in a maddeningly long, drawn out trial. However, it may all be for naught when her star witness is exposed as a fabricator and commits suicide shortly thereafter. Still, something about his behavior and that of his sister, Mira Arendt, arouses her suspicions. If he was not present when the atrocities in question occurred, perhaps she was. Not surprisingly, Mira is reluctant to even talk to the prosecutor, let alone testify.

Like any government office, the court is a hotbed of political infighting and bloated egos. Her boss, Keith Hayward, is skillful at navigating those roiling waters, but she only trusts him so far. Fortunately she has the support of her lover, Jonas Dahlberg, a jowly older Scandinavian EU representative. Given some rope by Hayward, she learns Arendt did indeed witness some of the events in question. Yet, what happened to her afterwards was far worse—but not covered by Maynard’s original indictment.

Storm is a German-Danish-Dutch co-production directed by a German starring a Romanian actress as a Bosnian, but its lingua franca is English, with some subtitled German, Bosnian, and Serbian thrown in for good measure. It might be an international affair, but it hardly engenders confidence in aspiring world-governing bodies like the international court.

Though they might be jaded, Storm’s supporting players give the film real depth and character. Rolf Lassgård gives a richly nuanced performance as the world-weary Dahlberg, completely commanding the screen in his scenes. Even his deep, haggard voice is intriguing. As the serpentine Hayward, Stephen Dillane’s work is also quite finely calibrated, always keeping the audience of balance, while maintaining complete credibility.

While Storm is well stocked with interesting character actors, the leads are more of a mixed bag. Romanian Anamaria Marinca is fast becoming one of the great international screen actors of the day. After unforgettable work in 4 Months 3 weeks and 2 Days, and a small but compelling turn in Five Minutes of Heaven, she again makes a strong impression as Arendt, convincingly conveying a wide spectrum of emotions, including fear, anger, and resolve. As written though, the character of Maynard is not particularly sympathetic or well developed, and New Zealander Kerry Fox never really fleshes it out.

Written by Schmid and Bernd Lange, Storm is a very smart (and cynical) film, up until the utterly unbelievable Hollywood-style ending. Still, Storm is hardly the first film to have trouble wrapping things up. For the most part, it is a fascinating depiction of the limits of international criminal law and a painful reminder of the crimes committed against humanity by the Bosnian-Serbs and their Serbian allies. It opens at the Quad this Friday (10/30).

Anatema: Choosing Life in Kosovo

Anatema
Directed by Agim Sopi
Vanguard Cinema

The horrors committed by the Serbian former Communists and their Bosnian Serb allies were horrendous, and the Free World’s feckless response was a scandal, which has yet to be adequately captured on film. The Hunting Party had some intriguing moments, but was undercut by a weak lead performance and displayed more interest in criticizing NATO for a lack of zealousness pursuing war criminals than dramatizing the actual crimes. Though not perfect, writer-director Agim Sopi’s Anatema (trailer here), now available on DVD, serves as a valuable corrective, shining a light on Serbian war crimes, in this case committed in Kosovo.

Sopi’s original intention was to document war crimes occurring in Kosovo with a documentary, but when the Serbian army confiscated his film, he was forced to shift his efforts to a narrative film. One of the unsettling aspects of Anatema is that it looks like its fictional crimes could have been filmed at the sights of previous real life atrocities. Those acts of evil dominate the first part of the film, as David Schwartz, an American journalist, and Ema Berisha, his Kosovar translator, attempt to save a little girl shot in the stomach by Serbian forces, but are prevented by Serbian officers making absurdist sport of the situation. After surviving the subsequent brutality of the Serbs, Schwartz broadcasts his report, only to be recalled by his network due to the impending NATO intervention. He and his field producer want to take Berisha with them, but she insists on returning to her home in Pristine.

Despite the temporary joy of a reunion with her fiancé, leading to their long postponed wedding, Pristine quickly turns into a nightmare. The Serbian forces occupy the city, deliberating using organized rape as a tool of terror and pacification, before expelling the survivors to Albania. On her return to Kosovo, Berisha is rejected by her husband and spurned by most of her friends. Nobody wants her to keep her baby (which for all she knows could be the product of her wedding night). The Kosovars do not want her to keep the presumed product of Serbian war crimes and issue of Serbian blood. The Serbs do not want such babies to survive as evidence of their crimes. Berisha is determined not to punish Ana, her unborn daughter, for the crimes of others. Indeed, Anatema (Ana + Ema) may well be the most pro-life film ever made.

Berisha is forced to temporarily give up Ana for adoption, but when she returns to claim her, the agency is gone. She tracks Ana to a former monastery appropriated by the old Communists and noveau mobsters trafficking in babies, both for profit and disposing of war crimes evidence.

Anatema is at heart a mother’s story and as such is wholly dependent on its lead actress. Unlike Richard Gere in Hunting Party, Lumnie Sopi is terrific as Ema. Unfortunately, many of the supporting actors are considerably weaker, although Blerim Gjoci is likeably credible as the sympathetic Kosovar Commander Shpati. Director Sopi truly takes the audience to occupied Kosovo, rightly forcing viewers to confront the reality of the war crimes committed there. However, he can be a bit heavy-handed, as when he shows a stampeding crowd trampling a baby’s doll. Still, his portrayals of Serbian brutality and the cluelessness of the international policing forces are infuriatingly effective, all of which is ultimately held together by an impressive lead performance.

Coming Soon: The Hunting Party

In October 2000 Scott Anderson wrote “What I Did on My Summer Vacation,” an article for Esquire magazine about his booze fueled misadventures, with four journalists friends (including Sebastian Junger of Perfect Storm fame), trying to track down the Bosnian Serb war criminal Radovan Karadzic. According to his article: “In the four and a half years since the war in Bosnia had ended, only forty-eight of the ninety-four men indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague had been captured.” In the seven years since its publication, one doubts many more war criminals have been caught, but the film The Hunting Party loosely based on Anderson’s piece has been produced and opens in New York September 7th, expanding successively wider the 14th and 21st (trailer here).

Written and directed by Richard Shepard, The Hunting Party boldly announces: “Only the most ridiculous parts of this story are true.” While there are flashes of inspiration throughout the film, and the opening and closing sequences border on brilliant, in-between Hunting Party simply is not as wildly unbelievable as it likes to think. Instead of the five journalist friends with more liquor and enthusiasm than sense, Hunting Party cuts the search party down to three, diversifying their backgrounds. Richard Gere plays down-and-out gonzo reporter Simon Hunt. Terrence Howard plays Duck, his former camera man, now enjoying a cushy network gig, and Jesse Eisenberg plays Benjamin, the annoying rookie journalist and son of a network big wig.

The strongest element of Party is its sense of place. Shot on location in Sarajevo and Croatia (doubling for Serbia), it presents a world literally scarred by war and figuratively haunted by ghosts. Their search for The Fox, the fictionalized version of Karadzic, takes on some intriguing twists and turns. Along the way, the United Nation’s incompetence is exposed (again), when the official attached to the International Police Task Force tells them he would be happy to make apprehending war criminals a priority, but he does not have a copy of the indictment list or a working fax machine—an episode the film deliberately points out was based on fact.

Gere emotes all over the screen as the tortured Hunt. Howard’s Duck however, having lost his spirit since selling out for network comfort, is understandably reserved and understated. Eisenberg’s Benjamin is simply irritating. Together they do not present a strong rooting interest. The strongest personalities on-screen are actually two small supporting parts. Mark Ivanir comes across as quirky but humane as Boris, the Bulgarian officer attached to the UN peacekeeping force, who wants to do the right thing, even if it is outside his official mandate. Also, Dylan Baker gets to chew on some of the film’s best dialogue as an arrogant CIA spook who materializes late in the film.

Hunting Party has its strengths and weakness. Despite some bland and clichéd characterizations, it moves along at a fast clip, and it does raise some valid questions. Was there a secret deal cut to protect war criminals like Karadzic during the 1995 peace talks? When the truth comes out on the Clinton administration, the real arsenic may be in their Bosnian record. For years, Clinton ignored the suffering of the Bosnians by steadfastly defending the arms embargo, which benefited the Serbs (and their Bosnian Serb allies by extension), as Serbia controlled most of the former Yugoslav army’s munitions. Did that administration also establish a policy of turning a blind eye to the fate of war criminals? A character in Hunting Party points out that they were able to find The Fox in a matter of days, whereas the UN, CIA, and NATO had five years, but were unsuccessful. Unfortunately, that is not too ridiculous to be true.