The Forgiveness of Blood

This affecting slice of bucolic realism from director Joshua Marston spotlights a much-ignored Balkan region—post-Iron Curtain rural Albania—where ancient blood feuds between families are making a post-communist resurgence amidst an unstable agrarian free market. The Forgiveness of Blood not only portrays the competition between two entrepreneurial Albanian families but also tells a parallel story of serious intergenerational conflict within the families themselves. The trouble begins when local bread delivery man Mark (Refet Abazi) has his usual route blocked by business rival Sokol (Veton Osmani). Viewers then learn secondhand that Mark and his brother eventually confront the uncooperative Sokol and kill him in some unspecified manner. Mark's brother is sent to jail, and Mark retreats into hiding, leaving his teenage son, Nik (Tristan Halilaj), and adolescent daughter, Rudina (Sindi Lacej), to carry on the family business as best they can. In this tragically tradition-bound society, the sons and daughters of the feuding adults adopt a more pacifist, “adult” attitude toward age-old conflicts and the religion that justifies them; conversely, the adults are depicted as childish: hotheaded, tantrum-prone, and unwilling to learn from mistakes. Highly recommended. (M. Sandlin)