The Maus

Sometimes we here in the US forget about the things that happened in what was once Yugoslavia in the early-to-mid 90s.  From personal experience, history classes that follow a chronological layout tend to stall out right around the Second World War, and plenty don’t even get that far.  I don’t think I’ve ever made it past the Cold War at any level, save perhaps the Central European History course during undergrad (where I successfully predicted the nascent independence of Montenegro, to toot mine own horn), though that course wasn’t strictly chronological.

For those who don’t remember (or never knew to begin with), when Yugoslavia was in the process of breaking up into its constituent nation-states (thus gifting us the term “Balkanization), the region didn’t have an easy go of things.  Slovenia was the first to break off in 1991, leading to skirmishes and the looming threat of heavy arsenal, but thankfully things didn’t fully escalate.  Then came Croatia, sparking a bloody war that would consume the region for years.  The issue at hand, at least on the surface, was the presence of a sizable minority of Serbs within the otherwise fairly homogeneous Croat state, which Serbian president Slobodan Milošević sought to “protect” through force of arms in the form of an invasion and all-out war against Croatia.  Macedonia came next, the only constituent to leave Yugoslavia without a row from Belgrade.  Then things went severely sideways when Bosnia (for the sake of brevity, I’ll be omitting the “and Herzegovina” throughout) sought independence.

See, Bosnia’s demographics were some of the most mixed in the region, with the plurality comprised of Bosniaks, otherwise known as Bosnian muslims, and heavy minority populations of Serbs and Croats.  With blood already being shed between Serbia and Croatia, this mixture basically doomed Bosnia to a horrific independence, one foreshadowed by the Serb nationalist leader Radovan Karadžić (who would go on to head the Serbian portion of the country after independence) when he warned that war would lead the “muslim people maybe into extinction”.  Indeed, the Bosnian War would tear the country nearly in half, pitting Serbs against Croats and Bosniaks, the latter facing a systematic campaign of genocide under the watchful eyes of Milošević and Karadžić.  Following aid from the UN (which was highly ineffective in stopping the massacre at Srebrenica) and NATO, a path to peace was able to be dug.  In what I consider one of the worst international peace treaties in history, the Dayton Accords kept Bosnia relatively intact with regard to her physical borders, but within, the state was, and still is, split into two highly autonomous polities, the Republika Srpska (the Serbian Republic) and the Bosnian Federation, though an overarching central governmental structure does exist.  Neither polity is allowed to leave the pseudo-confederation without going through a rigorous legal process that would likely require international assent.  This sad excuse for a treaty did indeed end the war, a plus to be sure, but it did little to ease the internal tensions caused thereby, rather perpetuating them to this very day: there remains a powerful mistrust between the Serbs and the Bosniaks (as well as the Croats), and RS has recently threatened to go forward with an independence initiative, the potential success of which would rend Bosnia in twain and create a very tenuous set of complex borders between the two new states.

I bring all of this up because these issues continue to color the former Yugoslav constituents.  Bad blood flows, often hotly, and old wounds have certainly not yet healed.  It’s against this backdrop of ethnic tensions seething beneath an otherwise civil surface that The Maus is set.

Strangely, though, the film is a Spanish production, the effort of first-time feature-length writer/director Gerardo “Yayo” Herrero Pereda, filmed in the forests of Segovia, yet set in Bosnia, somewhere (it’s never made clear) west of Srebrenica.  Its plot follows a pair of lovers, a Bosniak woman and her German beau, as they come from Srebrenica, where they buried the recently-discovered remains of her family members, who were killed during the Bosnian War.  Their car breaks down (somehow, it’s not made clear) in the forest, and they’re lost.  Thanks to the war, the forest is laden with landmines, and the couple is ignorant of their positions.  A pair of Serbian landsmen appear, slightly rudely trying to help them, but our heroine (well, sorta, her position isn’t made clear) is wary of them, and she inadvertently sets off a mine, injuring her.  Things go gradually sideways and sinister from there, reality and nightmarish manifestations of paranoia blending into a morass of dark survival and bloodshed.

A Bosniak herself, Alma Terzić brings some hefty authenticity to the central role of Selma, our titularly pet-named “mouse”, whose erstwhile buried memories and emotions are forced to the fore with the recent funeral.  Her fear, paranoia, and fury are all equally palpable, and the audience is constantly kept at bay when the fire in her lime-flesh green eyes sparks forth.  Her counterpart is played well by August Wittgenstein, who makes Alec into something of an inconsistent character, oscillating between warm support for his girlfriend, fretful desperation, and a form of righteous anger toward his headstrong mate.  The inconsistencies seem purposeful, something I’ll touch on momentarily.  Sanin Milavic and Aleksandar Seksan, both hailing from Sarajevo, play their Serbian parts with sleazy and foreboding gusto, their villainy somehow both obvious and well-hidden at the same time (like many things, it’s kept unclear).  The cinematography of Rafael Reparaz is stunning, combining the earthy greens and browns of the surrounding forest with the sheer darkness of the Serbs’ subterranean bunker and maintaining a consistent tone of enigmatic despair throughout, aided by Yayo’s spinning and close-up camera.

What gets me is the layered approach Yayo took to the narrative.  At the surface, we get a fairly visceral survival tale, not entirely unlike Eden Lake and the like, though the events are often cryptic and ambiguous.  Then there’s the myriad interpretations of the deeper layers, issuing from the direct action and the large lack of clarity throughout (remember all of the times I mentioned something wasn’t made clear?) merging from time to time.  We see the lingering effects of the aging ethnic tensions of the 90s as the Serbs pounce on and brutalize our Bosniak, we see the impact of international intervention in the form of non-committal and ineffectual Alec (who, though demonstrably German, is derisively referred to by the Serbs as “Europe”), and we see just how difficult it can be to let go of the ghosts of past brutalities.  Indeed, a final scene, set in some park somewhere else (once again, it’s not made clear) shows another echo of systemic conflict, a reminder that, though the days of open war may have passed long ago, the wounds still fester and produce plenty of problems today.

The film is a harsh indictment of wartime atrocity and a visceral illustration of how the resulting pain hangs over its victims.  It’s genuinely tense and artfully made, certainly earning it a glowing recommendation from me, especially if gritty survival flicks are your bag.  Some of the imagery may remain ambiguous to me (just look at that figure on the poster up there), but the messages are coming in loud and clear.  Something tells me I’ll be revisiting this film in the future, possibly clearing some things up, but hopefully not everything: gotta save room for viewings further on up the road, kids.  Always leave them wanting more, salivating.  Always.