Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams

Winner of several festival awards, Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (the official entry from Bosnia and Herzegovina for a Best Foreign Language Oscar, though it was not nominated) is not a true story, but its devastating power derives from its sense of authenticity. Esma (the lovely Mirjana Karanovic) and her 12-year-old daughter Sara (Luna Mijovic) live in Grbavica, a Sarajevo neighborhood that during the war served as the location for a prison camp notorious for torture and rape. Writer-director Jasmila Zbanic presents the daily horror of trying to cope with a past that looms all around you. Initially, we don't know why Esma, struggling with multiple dead-end jobs, doesn't take an easier path to pay for a much-desired school trip for Sara—all Esma needs to do is dig up the piece of paper that documents her husband's military service, and the trip will be free to this daughter of a veteran. Zbanic reveals the film's secrets so carefully—with such a delicate attention to the emotional and social ruin in which her characters live—that even when we see one coming, it shocks nevertheless. Highly recommended. (M. Johanson)