QUO VADIS, AIDA?: FILM REVIEW
When learning about some of history’s cruelest atrocities through textbooks or in school, it is often easy to disassociate from the tragedy — to see occurrences as just another piece of fabric woven into our dark past. But in Jasmila Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida?, Zbanic makes it impossible to ignore the separation of innocent families, the senseless deaths of loved ones, and the loss of a generation of people in the 1995 Bosnia genocide.
Quo Vadis, Aida? recalls the horrific 1995 Srebrenica genocide — a time of mass violence during which more than 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys were killed, and an estimated 23,000 women, children, and elderly people were shuttled onto buses to Bosniak-controlled territory. The genocide was led by the commander of the Bosnian Serb army, General Ratko Mldaic, who took over the town of Srebenica, which was declared a United Nations safe zone in 1993. Thousands of local civilians flocked to a nearby UN base camp to seek safety from Dutch forces, who were acting as peacekeepers. Ultimately, the international community failed to protect them, and their blind complicitly resulted in the death and displacement of thousands.
In Quo Vadis, Aida?, Zbanic portrays the horrific massacre through the point of view of Aida (Jasna Ðuričić), a fictional Bosnian UN interpreter and former high school teacher. If there’s one way to describe the film’s pace, it’s frantic. Over the course of the film, Aida becomes increasingly desperate to not only save the innocent civilians of Srebrenica, but also the lives of her husband Nihad (Izudin Bajrovic), a former high school principal, and her two teenage sons, Hamdija (Boris Ler) and Sejo (Dino Bajrovic).
The foreshadowing of the UN’s ultimate failure to protect the Bosnian people is clear from the beginning of the film, which depicts thousands of Bosnians waiting outside the UN base camp, as only a few hundred are allowed in due to “capacity” issues. Families sit desperately by the fence, which acts as a physical barrier between life and death. However, it soon becomes clear that even those inside the base are not safe — no one is.
As a translator, Aida horrifically sits on both sides of the aisle. On one hand, she must dutifully spread the messages of the UN commander to the civilians, regardless of if she actually believes or trusts the orders she spews into the megaphone. On the other hand, she knows that she is acting as the mouthpiece of false hope and reassurance. The United Nations, an organization meant to protect civilians, actually does the opposite, and in fact, worse. They work under the guise that everything is under control and the only person who can see through their sheer curtain is Aida. However, Aida is just a translator — and one that must still follow the commands of her bosses. The only thing she can do is try to protect those she loves, and even that task seems less and less possible as time goes on. In a critical scene, Aida reaches a point of such desperation that she begs for the UN commander to safeguard just one of her two sons — a choice mothers should never have to make.
Zbanic’s Quo Vadis, Aida? is a paralyzing film that elicits intense emotions of fear, terror, and disgust. The viewer, who sits idly while watching the catastrophe unfold, feels as helpless and panicked as Aida, all the while being appalled at the UN’s blind complicity in the matter. With Quo Vadis, Aida? Zbanic works in an effort to ensure that the world cannot turn away from the Bosnian genocide, and never forgets that in a moment where the Bosnian people needed help the most, the UN failed to act.