Dara of Jasenovac

 2.5/4

Starring: Biljana Cekic, Anja Stanic, Sandra Ljubojevic, Nikolina Friganovic, Jelena Grusicic, Zlatan Vidovic

Rated R for Strong and Disturbing Violent Content, and Some Sexual Content

I'll give "Dara of Jasenovac" credit for a few things: shining a light on an often overlooked part of history, not shrinking from the horrors that occurred nor backing down from controversy.  Unfortunately the film isn't wholly successful.  It contains strong performances from its cast and more than a few scenes of real power, but a lack of dialogue, thin characters and some poorly motivated actions hold it back from true excellence.

"Dara of Jasenovac" tells the story of the genocide of the Serbs by the Croats.  While it did occur during WWII and shared many elements with the Holocaust, the crimes committed by the Ustacse government (which was a puppet state of the Nazi Party), it is very much its something else, even if the genocides interconnected.  Our entry-point is a ten-year old girl named Dara (Cekic), who has arrived at the Jasenovac prison system with her mother Nada (Stanic) and brothers.  One by one, everyone she loves or is close to is taken from her.  The only constant is her two year old brother Bude, whom she refuses to be parted with.  Meanwhile, her father Mile (Vidovic) is in another area disposing of the corpses and praying that none of them are of his family members.

What is good about the film is that it so successfully creates a world of despair and suffering.  I identified with the Serbian victims who endure so much death and misery for no justifiable misery and loathed every single one of their vile oppressors.  Cultivating that sense of fear and horror is not an easy thing to do, so I fully commend director Predrag Antonijevic for pulling it off.  There is a sense that no one is safe and, in a sense, death is inevitable.  Children are not spared either; kids are usually safe from violence in the movies, but not here.  Portraying violence against children is dangerous territory for films, and Antonijevic finds the right touch.  We know enough to understand what is going, but he doesn't linger on it or exploit it in some way.

Unfortunately, Dara just isn't a very interesting protagonist.  This isn't a knock against Biljana Ckic, who is very good in the title role.  It's just that she is a flat character.  Apart from her fierce love for her brother, we don't know much about her.  She remains a passive character almost to the very end, keeping her head down and doing what she must to survive.  I suppose that's all anyone in this film can do, but giving her a better rounded personality would have made her a good anchor for the film.  Dara is aided and looked after by several strong women, such as her mother Nada, her aunt Vera (Ljubojevic) and Mileva (Friganovic), a woman she arrived with.  And there is also a Jewish girl named Blankica (Grujicic) who helps her like an older sister.  They are all more interesting than Dara.

Another thing that the film does wrong is having so many people help her and her father.  At first it is moving to see such self-sacrifice in a time of such atrocities, but was there really such behavior going on? Did people really display such altruism, even when they know it will cost them their lives?  If it only happened once or twice, I might have been able to overlook the contrivances needed to tell certain parts of the story.  But this happens repeatedly, causing these actions to lose their effect and their believability.

Yet I cannot deny that "Dara of Jasenovac" does have the capacity to horrify and move.  This is a violent and forceful film, the R rating is richly deserved.  Antonijevic knows what he is doing and has an eye for dealing with this kind of material.  But it could have been so much more.