Love IS a battlefield

There is no better film to watch other than In The Land of Blood & Honey, after I get back from Birotatanegara Camp (sorta a boot camp but less military). As Angelina Jolie's directing and writing debut, the piece gives a perfect reflection of what is happening intricately in Malaysian politics, nowadays, and the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am gonna leave that to my fellow Malaysians to observe it in the film.

If you look at her portfolio as an actress (The Tourist, Salt, Wanted, Tomb Raider, Original Sin, Mr. Mrs. Smith), you’d never thought of seeing this piece from her. As her first time directing and writing, Angelina has an artist’s eye, strong personal vision, and a masterful command of her stars.

It is 1992 and tensions between Serbs and Bosnians in the former Yugoslavia were escalating to frightening levels. Ajla (Zana Marjanovic), an artist and a Bosnian, agrees to go out on a date with Danijel (Goran Kostic), a cop and a Serb. They meet at a club and as the evening progresses, dance and flirt with each other. Their date ends when a bomb explodes in the club killing many people. Ajla and Danijel survive but they are now thrust headlong into the center of a war characterized by a newly designated term, “ethnic cleansing”.

This piece highlights the savagery of the Serbs. Danijel has been given the position of running a military camp by his father, Serbian General Nebojsa (Rade Serbedzija). When Ajla is one of the women rounded up to be a sex slave in his camp, he saves her from rape. Danijel keeps her away from his men and takes her as his lover. Having a Bosnian Muslim for a lover and protecting her, is highly dangerous for him.

Zooming out to the actuality of the war, this ruthless movie puts a human face on a conflict that was all but ignored by the rest of the world even as it encompassed the worst genocide in Europe since the Nazis and horrific war crimes from mass systematic rape to the use of civilians as human shields.

Of course I have heard about “ethnic cleansing” but this film boldly and bluntly puts it all out there like an untold story. The rape and humiliation of the women and Nazi-like behavior of the soldiers is harrowing – important because it happened in the 1990s. The Serbian soldiers killed civilians as ruthlessly as the Nazis. They took people from their homes with the same violence shown the Jews during Hitler’s reign.

If there is one good reason why this piece lost to the Iranian masterpiece, A Separation, in last year’s academy award, it should be the direction in acting and weak script. While I am sure that romances such as the one depicted in this movie do occur, the movie is unconvincing. What happens on the screen seems impossible, despite a good many things the actors and technical people do very well. Even the good choices Jolie makes, such as her insistence in casting actors unknown to U.S. audiences and having them say their lines in their native Serbo-Croatian, are undone by the terrible love story at the movie’s core.

Never less than competent, it’s clearly the result of a sincere, long-harbored desire to raise awareness of these horrific, dehumanizing events. It is frequently said that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it and, with that in mind, it’s an almost entirely noble endeavor. The film’s treatment of Serb characters – most of whom are portrayed as monsters beyond redemption – has already proved controversial and divisive for many in the Balkans as they look to move on from the past.

The man and the woman

We all want to grow up. We're desperate to get there. Grab all the opportunities we can to live. We're so busy trying to get out of that mess, we don't think about the fact that it's going to be cold out there. Really freaking cold. Because growing up sometimes means leaving people behind. And by the time we stand on our own two feet, we're standing there alone.

For the past, at least, 10 years, I have been waking up feeling I am the one who holds my own choices, decisions, and consequences. Friends, best friends, family, lovers, acquaintances, people around me, come and tap all kinds of resources out of me even at the heart. I have given it all and most of the time without tapping into theirs.

However, the man of my life and my mom have taught me an essential life lesson.

That the human body is made up of systems that keep it alive. The one that keeps you breathing, the one that keeps you standing, the one that makes you hungry and the one that makes you happy. They're all connected, take a piece out and everything else falls apart. And it's only when our support systems look like they might fail us that you realize how much we depended on them all along.

There’s an endless gravitational limitation on how this man has pulled me into a force to reckon with.  Healed.

I have never fully and heartedly understood this piece, which I have once performed years ago in front of a bunch of talented performers in Movement for Actor class in Purdue Theatre. A recent ‘fall’ has reminded me that this piece speaks directly on how ‘beautiful’ this man is in accompanying me to get back into the battlefield of life.

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 I hold her hands and press her to my breast.

 I try to fill my arms with her loveliness, to plunder her sweet

   smile with kisses, to drink her dark glances with my eyes.

 Ah, but, where is it? Who can strain the blue from the sky?

 I try to grasp the beauty, it eludes me, leaving only the body in

   my hands.

 Baffled and weary I come back.

 How can the body touch the flower which only the spirit may

   touch?

                   The Garderner, Rabindranath Tagore

Mom used to tell me that I could go out and play. Running and chasing all different kind of victories. But do come back before the sun goes down. She hopes for happiness.

I came back with a great wound.

She has come comforting me as the truest friend I have, when trials heavy and sudden, fall upon me; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with me in my sunshine desert me; when trouble thickens around me, still will she cling to me, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to my heart.

Thus, now, I have learned that everything is connected. Every little kid knows the words to the song. The foot bones connected to the leg bone. The leg bones connected to the knee bone. In biology, I learn it's a little more complicated than that. The song’s not wrong. Everything is connected in order for ME to stand tall. Again.

Clear cut

I've heard the all warnings and I've ignored them. I pushed my luck. I rolled the dice. I played with fire. It's human nature. When I was told not to touch something, I usually did, even if I knew better. Maybe because deep down, I was just asking for trouble. Trouble that risked the whole of my life.

It's a clear damaging cut.

All of my life I was trained to be vigilant, to chase down the problem, to ask all the right questions, to find the root cause until I know exactly what it is and I confront it. It takes an extreme amount of caution or I can't overstep myself. I can create problems that don't exist.

Because my intentions are always pure. I always want to do what is right, but I also have the drive to push boundaries. So I was in danger of taking things too far. I was told to do no harm while I was trained to cut myself open with a knife. So when I do things when I should have left well enough alone. Because its hard to admit when there's no problem to treat, to let it alone before I make it so much worse. Because I caused terrible damage.

Until I have used every single strength in every single cells in my body, I am not gonna give up. The insanity these cells brought into my soul has conjured an insensible heart, a numb heart. It is not time for a curtain call yet. Until then, I am gonna be living truthfully under imaginary circumstances - call me insane.

Then, the heart will stop.

It's one of those things that people say, you can't move on until you let go of the past. Letting go is the easy part, it's the moving on that's painful. So sometimes we fight it, try and keep things the same. Things can't stay the same though. At some point, you just have to let go. Move on. Because no matter how painful it is, it's the only way we grow.