Radovan Tadic, a Croat born of Bosnian parents, returned to Sarajevo in October 1992 and again from January through May 1993. Now a filmmaker in Paris, Tadic provides an intimate, almost surreal documentation of the lives of about a dozen Sarajevans who lived under siege warfare for 23 months before a shaky truce bega two weeks ago, enforced by a NATO threat of bombings.
The filmmaker constantly finds warmth, humour, bravery – the sheer humanity of the people in the face of the constant soundtrack of explosions and small arms fire. But it is difficult to avoid the conclusions of psychiatrist Liliana Orouch. “When all strength fades, suicide tendencies manifest themselves in various ways,” she says. “You often hear the phrase, ‘I no longer have any desire to live,’ ‘It’s all the same if I’m hit by a bullet,’ ‘I pray to God that I am killed’ …People do it out of despair. They say to themselves, ‘I’m leaving.’ “
Randal Ashley, The Atlanta Journal

It’s an achingly remorseful chronicle of life in the depths of the Serbian shelling and sniping. To see Sarajevo in the 1990s is to catch a timeless glimpse of other cities in other ghastly times. The Warsaw and Leningrad of 50 years ago come to mind. But in the midst of hollowed buildings and daily carnage, Tadic is intent on probing Sarajevo for a moral pulse.
John Carman, San Francisco Chronicle

Filmed late last year and early this year by a Yugoslavian filmmaker now living in France, this work depicts better than anything else I’ve seen ehat it must be like to live in a city under siege.
John Voorhees, The Seattle Times (1994)

With uncommon subtleness, Yugoslavian-born filmmaker Radovan Tadic chronicles war’s psychological impact. Surely this helps to explain the feelings of the chief surgeon at the Sarajevo hospital: “Do you know what a miracle it is, that in the midst of all this death a life is born?... Life struggles inside man. It’s stronger than death.”
Mike Mc Daniel, Houston Chronicle

свернуть