As director and writer, Angelina Jolie presents the Bosnia War as a variation on the Romeo & Juliet story. Her In the Land of Blood and Honey focuses on bloodthirsty Serbs, who are determined to eradicate the Bosniacs (Muslim Bosnians) by killing as many men as possible and siring as many mixed-ethnic children by raping Muslim women. A prototypic Muslim woman, Ajla (played by Zana Marjanovic), begins the film dancing at a disco, infatuated by Bosnian Police Captain Danijel (played by Goran Kostic), when a bomb goes off. The year is 2002. Although both survive, the terrorist attack turns out to be an opening salvo in the Bosnian Serb attempt to seize power in Bosnia by scaring the population so that mixed-ethnic socialization will stop. The Serbs then round up Muslims, separating men from women. The film does not explain where the men are going, but executions of Muslim men occupy some film footage. That’s some of the “blood” of the film, but more attention is directed to the “honey,” that is the women, who are held prisoner, forced to cook and serve meals for the Serb warriors during the daytime and to succumb to sexual assaults in the evening. When Captain Danijel learns that Ajla is among of those captured, he removes her from the communal quarters of the women to a private room where he tries to continue his relationship. Ajla is fearful of what will happen, but in time Danijel convinces her that she will be spared of sex slavery because she is his “property.” After he is transferred to Sarajevo, she escapes the slave compound, following his advice, finds temporary sanctuary with Muslim rebels, but is recaptured, and soon discovered by Danijel, who again secures her a room in his new headquarters. On learning of the arrangement, his father Nebojsa (played by Rade Serbedzija) has one of his aides assault her sexually, and he then insists that his son stop associating with his “Muslim whore.” The Romeo & Juliet paradigm then plays out, but not as Shakespeare would have preferred. Amid the personal drama, the film provides the political context (with apparent fingerprints of Samantha Power), including the initial reluctance of the international community to act, as an anonymous American political leader (actually, James Baker) is quoted as saying, “We have no dog in the fight.” Red Cross vehicles arrive to assist, but Serbs target them. Later, UN personnel are killed. Serb perceptions that they held back Muslims 500 years earlier and beat the Nazis are viewed as the reason why they are justified in engaging in war crimes, which are presented baldly on the screen (though filming is in Hungary). Titles at the end provide statistics about the carnage along with some pessimism that the ethnic cleavage will ever be healed. Jolie, for the past decade been a Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, bases the film on accounts by a survivor who, among many horrors, was used as a human shield, as depicted in the film. Film credits say that rape was first identified as a war crime in Bosnia, but that crime was prosecuted at the Tokyo War Crimes Trials (see next film). The Political Film Society has nominated In the Land of Blood and Honey for the year’s best film on human rights and on why peace is preferable to violence. MH