DEATH IN SARAJEVO
France/ Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2015, 85 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Danis Tanovic.
Directed Danis Tanovic made the celebrated film about the Balkan war, No Man’s Land. He also directed a screenplay byKieslowski, Hell.
This time he has taken a play by Bernard- Henri Levy, Hotel Europe. The film is generally confined to the interiors of the hotel and the roof, yet with fluid camera work, a sense of motion of activity, especially following central characters all around the hotel, the lobby, the corridors, the rooms, the basement…
The occasion is the hundredth anniversary of the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo, 1914. The screenplay provides a lot of historical background with a television program and being prepared, an interviewer with a range of characters who explain the situation in the country, in the city, the historical times of the 20th century, as well as debates about the assassins being terrorists or not, and the consequences of the assassination for World War I.
In the meantime, the management of the hotel is in debt, the staff and not been paid for months, there is an imminent strike with thugs bashing the strikers. There is also a focus on one of the staff, an efficient young woman, seeing her in action, making sure that the hotel runs smoothly in the situation of the centenary celebration.
There are some personal drama with the young woman, her mother who is now leading the strike, a cook with whom she has had a liaison, and the manager who has sexual intentions about her but fires her.
1. A story of Sarajevo, 1914 and the assassination of the Archduke, 2014 and the centenary.
2. The film based on a play, the hotel, rooms and corridors, kitchen and basement, laundry, staircases and lifts, a sense of place? The musical score?
3. The title, the memories of 1914, the historical background, the explanations, the political aspects, the terrorists, the assassination? The consequences for World War I?
4. The device of having the interviews for television, the interviewer and her questions, the range of interviewees, their perspectives on Bosnian history, past centuries, animosities, the Serbs, the Croatians, the experience of World War I, World War II? Religious differences? The Balkan wars, Srebrenica and the atrocities?
5. The interviewee waiting, the same name as the Archduke’s killer, his interactions with the interviewer, his political stances, the issue of terrorism, the political clash, the break in the conversations, the French representative, the guns, the alleged terrorist shot dead?
6. Life in the hotel, the potential strike, the brutality of the strikebreakers, bashing the leader of the strikers, taking the woman from the laundry? The determination to have the strike, mismanagement in the hotel?
7. The hotel, in debt, the mismanagement, symbol of Balkan countries?
8. The manager, roaming the hotel, the discussion about debts, his favouring Lamija, areas of responsibility, his dealings with the staff, with the financiers, not wanting the strike, the confrontation with Lamija, the attempt to molest her, and sacking her?
9. Lamija, her work in the hotel, efficient, the activity of the camera in following her through the corridors, the continued sense of motion? The liaison with the cook and rejecting him? The discussions with her mother, not wanting her mother to strike? Defending her mother and searching for her? With the French visitor, washing and ironing of the shirt? Her checking on people? Omer and his being upset with her, the attempted molestation, firing her?
10. The French visitor, his room, shirt, surveillance, seen preparing his speech, smooth words from the EU, the confrontation with the gun?
11. The director and the writer of the play, their views on Bosnia, the 19th century into the 20th, the 20th into the 21st?
