Belvedere (2010)

Directed by: Ahmed Imamovic | 90 minutes | drama | Actors: Sadzida Setic, Nermin Tulic, Minka Muftic, Armin Rizvanovic, Adis Omerovic

In spotless black and white ‘Belvedere’ records the experiences of a family in a refugee camp of the same name, in 2010. The camp is populated by women, children and a man without legs. ‘Belvedere’ is located on the outskirts of the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, where in July 1995 some eight thousand boys and men – Muslims – were massacred by the Serbian army. The main character is Ruveyda (Sadzida Setic), who shares a house with her sister Zeyna (Minka Muftić) and her young adult cousin Adnan. Like practically all the women around Ruveyda, she has been in purgatory between knowing and evidence for fifteen years: knowing she is a widow, but still waiting for a digger or a man in a white suit to extract the bony evidence of it. deepens the soil around Srebrenica. ‘Belvedere’ poetically captures the fate and unfathomable loneliness of these women, filming them as only Johannes Vermeer could have painted them. The film links that subtlety with sardonic effect to Adnan’s participation in the Bosnian version of the TV program ‘Big Brother’.

Director Ahmed Imamovic only needs an hour and a half to bring to life the hopeless web in which the women of Srebrenica are entangled. They themselves stand practically still, only the daily walk to the morgue (where new human remains are delivered every day), keeps them going. The men who are still alive are drowning in guilt, such as Ruveyda’s brother Aliya (Nermin Tulić, also a war veteran in real life). In Srebrenica itself, the women come across people who are responsible for the death of their loved ones, friends, relatives. In ‘Belvedere’ such a person drives a Porsche Cayenne with impunity and finds justice on his side (Srebrenica is located in the Serbian part of Bosnia). And their children only know the genocide of ’95 from hearsay. They want to break free from the misery their mothers suffer from. For example, so, by participating in Big Brother. This program is called a reality show. But his attempts at ‘harmless entertainment’ become sickeningly false when you link them to what happens (also) in the ‘real’ world. As happens in ‘Belvedere’.

Fortunately, suffering and moralism remain bearable in the film. Thanks to Aliya’s tinkering with old cars, but especially thanks to the dryly comical, accordion-playing pudding tarzan Adnan (Adis Omerović). He wants exactly what his mother, aunt and uncle can no longer do: to lead a carefree life, unhampered by past events, nor by the suffering of others. Just like the viewers of Big Brother – probably – want it to. And do it too, because life goes on, that’s the message here. Whether that is desirable is a question that the viewer has to answer for himself.