Gori Vatra (Fuse) was the last wonderful movie I've watched. It's set in Tesanj, a small predominantly Muslim village in central Bosnia.
Tesanj, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Tesanj suffers from most of the problems that were common throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina in the late 1990s, following the war. There is high unemployment, deep-rooted religious tension, a thriving criminal underworld and black market, and a corrupt municipal government more concerned with lining its own pockets than doing much of anything for the village.
It is here that the American government announces Bill Clinton, the American President, will come to deliver a speech about how wonderfully Bosnia is doing since the peace accords that ended the war. Let the comedy begin.
The municipal government has to burry the criminal underworld, especially the drug and sex slavery industry. So the Mayor asks his cousin, the mob boss, to keep it low for a while.
The firefighters working in the Muslim and Christian halves of the village have to unite in one force, as they claimed to have done 3 years earlier. UN officials make them sit together, shake hands, and voila - all problems are solved, they think.
The chaos doesn't take long to begin. The girlfriend of one of the Muslim firefighters steps on a landmine she day she returns from her life as a refugee in Germany. She loses both her legs.
Magdalena, a Romanian sex slave, pays one of the mob boss' underlings to let her and her friends go. She also has one of the funniest scenes in the movie. Lying on a bed with another prostitute, while two police officers... you know what... to them, the two women have a conversation.
Jelena: What year did man land on the moon?
Magdalena: Why?
Jelena: It's a contest. They're giving away a free car.
Magdalena: Not a clue... '93?
In the midst of all this, another refugee returns home. A Serbian woman, the former wife of a local Muslim man. She is not welcomed very fondly, in fact, she's tortured by the locals. All of them believe she abandonned her husband, who was killed in the war, and fled to live with her fellow Serbs. They call her a "Cetnik's wh-r-.", Cetnik being the term used for Serbian nationalists.
In one of the most powerful scenes in the movie, she tells the brother of her husband what really happened.
"I knew people in Doboj, so we were supposed to go there, get our papers, and leave. But the shelling started, everything shut overnight. There were screams, bombings... slitting throats in the streets. I stayed inside for a month, like Anne Frank, f--k... then, one day, a knock at the door. I peek outside... it's Adnan [Her husband, she breaks down at this point]. Go go, I said. Lets go. Run, run. To car, to forest, run run. We were running, and I couldn't keep up. And Adnan ran ahead. Then, a snipers bullet. He fell, and I laid down also. All I could see was a shadow, take his bag, then nothing, silence... After that, I went to Germany. Singing... Jesus..."
So the Americans start to arrive, and they organize a giant peace concert in the center of town. Three Romanian hookers are dressed up as traditional Muslims, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians since none of the local women was willing to do such with the other religion's women.
Then they all sing and dance. The Americans are so happy everyone is getting along as the Serbian visitors slowly leave. "I'm not staying. F--k them and their Muslimfest."
Then, the Americans come. A bomb goes off in a home on the edge of the village, a father whose just found his son's body kills himself - despite his still having a daughter. The limosine carrying Clinton, which was just about to stop, speeds off.
The end.
It's much better and deeper when you see it though. If anyone is interested, I can post a few clips.
