“Quo Vadis, Aida?” (2021), which means, “Where are you going, Aida?,” is a war drama set during July 1995 in Bosnia as the Chetniks, a.k.a. The Army of Republika Srpska, i.e. the Bosnian Serb Army, invade Srebrenica, a UN designated “safe zone.” Aida (Jasna Djuricic), a UN translator and former schoolteacher, tries to juggle her work responsibilities and concerns for her family, but as the situation deteriorates, she loses confidence in her employer’s resolve to protect them.
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” is a great period film that drops viewers in the middle of the action in an unfamiliar place. Director Jasmila Zbanic uses Aida as a focal point to become emotionally invested since the scope of the people in jeopardy is so vast that there is a risk of viewers being overwhelmed, numb and indifferent. With long shots of crowds and numerous people who know Aida and ask her for help, Zbanic never lets viewers forget that Aida is not the only one who has fears and people that she wants to protect. This film benefits from repeat viewings because a viewer will see a mass of unrecognizable people then distinguish individuals and cobble together their complete story.
Because the needs are so vast, “Quo Vadis, Aida?” does allot a certain amount of sympathy to the Dutch UN peacekeepers, who are hung out to dry with no support from headquarters, but are trying to act as if they still have authority. They are commanded to make bricks with no straw. UN Colonel Thom Karremans (Johan Heldenbergh) starts as the face of the protectors, but retreats and makes Major Rob Franken (Raymond Thiry) do the dirty work once the Colonel gives up. Because we are watching a movie, a viewer may be expecting certain tropes to kick in and save the day. The Major is by the book and obeys orders so as Aida shift our expectations for him to uphold their principles, we do as well. Lieutenant Rutten (Juda Goslinga) never utters a word, but his eyes indicate his disapproval and quiet pleas to his superiors to behave differently. He wears a Star of David around his neck. Captain Mintjes (Teun Luijkx) is emblematic of most of the UN forces—he sees that the Chetniks are not acting in good faith when Chetniks frisk a woman civilian, Camila (Jelena Kordic-Kuret), and is disgusted, but turns away, aware of his impotence. The gradual definition of their duty shifts from protecting civilians to protecting themselves. The movie asks the question whether the UN forces are complicit for not questioning the Chetniks’ promises and helping them carry it out. When Aida translates the UN’s instructions to do what the Chetniks order without adding her own words of warning, which would be a violation of a translator’s job description, is she as complicit as the UN?
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” shows how the veneer of authority is at the expense of the weakest and reveals the weakness of having military forces protect people. (Maybe a civilian needs to command the UN forces on the ground?) Their instinct is to obey a uniform and force and order around civilians, which is the opposite of their mission. A civilian such as Aida may have tunnel vision since she only wants to protect her family and does not see the big picture of protecting the UN officials and her fellow civilians, but she is closer in spirit to the actual mission. When Frankens chides Aida for not working and interrupting him, an outside viewer will want to scream at the screen, “What work? You’re saving no one.” Even though it is obvious that if the UN forces attempt to exercise their authority, they will lose and die, one must ask if the UN’s presence puts people in more danger as a false sense of security when the Bosnians could have at least faced the reality of their situation.
When “Quo Vadis, Aida?” focuses on the Chetniks, in contrast to the UN forces and the Bosnians, they act with certainty and in one accord, which also enhances their authority. They gain the confidence of the UN officials and Bosnian civilians by meeting their needs, which is what the UN failed to do. On one hand, they are paranoid and looking for soldiers until the head of toxic masculinity rears its head when they ridicule Bosnian men for not killing them. They offer a meeting as a pretense to distract and get access to the base. They are making propaganda with a video camera. The contrast in preparation and planning is stark. They win at mind games.
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” handles genocide tastefully without minimizing its impact. Filmmakers must guard against inadvertently glorying in an orgy of violence and rape and allying with violent perpetrators, but Zbanic solves this problem by focusing on the Bosnians or their animals as they experience loss. If you are concerned about traumatizing yourself with brutal recreations, do not worry. Zbanic conveys a massacre by showing the actors’ tears well up in their eyes before the inevitable then pans outside to the neighborhood to show people running away from a basketball court when they hear gunfire.
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” handles the aftermath of war in a similar fashion to how Zbanic handled the crisis, but instead of the uncomfortable warmth, closeness, and noisiness, it is quiet, filled with the white of the winter landscape, walls of a makeshift morgue and Aida’s old apartment. Aida is still our focal point, but other women are recognizable among the crowds of women as they peer into a mass grave and examine the remains to find their loved ones. As Bosnians return home, the feeling of danger is muffled and former Chetnik soldiers in plain clothes are neighbors with those that they brutalized. Pleasantries are exchanged, but the ending echoes a marijuana induced flashback of the last time that everyone was together peacefully. It feels unreal, foreboding, oneiric, a lie of happiness and normality. If they could kill so many to get an apartment, then what is preventing them from doing it again?
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” ends with the guilty and innocent survivors watching a children’s performance. Dialogue decreases to nothing after a terse, polite exchange between Aida and a Christian woman with a young boy, the first Serbian woman that Zbanic shows on screen. This woman believes that she is doing a good deed. The war is in the language. The Christian woman, Vesna (Edita Malvocic) uses neutral language to describe what she thought happened to the former owners without assigning blame to anyone, least of all herself, as if the owners spontaneously died and were not murdered. When Vesna expresses concern for Aida, Aida uses language to reveal that this woman is concerned about her own comfort. Aida has a small, private victory, but she only wins ashes and emptiness. Later she finds out that her volley of words targeted the right person though she did not know it, but it falls far short of justice.
If asked at what point did I know how “Quo Vadis, Aida?” was going to turn out, it was when General Ratko Mladic (Boris Isakovic, Djuricic’s real life husband) asked for civilian representatives. Eagle-eyed viewers who pay attention to the early scenes and identity of characters will understand why.
“Quo Vadis, Aida?” is one of the best movies of 2021 because it does not fall into tropes and leaves viewers feeling helpless. It is nuances like real life with no pat solutions on how to act in the future or heal in the present. No one leaves unaffected.
