DIPLOMAT ARTIST: "THE GIRL IN THE FILM"

- March 4, 2009

It is prudent for Bosnians to be reserved if not skeptical about others who tell stories of their travails during the war and "ethnic cleansing" from 1992-1995. Even today, with the war more than a dozen years past, the sense of normalcy is far from regained. There is the desire and the veneer in cafes and small business shops. However, it is also evident that the regressive forces are holding hostage the current peace and the return to a truly multiethnic society. To rationalize this failure, many foreign observers continue to adapt stereotypes and promote notions of "age-old hatreds" and selfish politicians to paint broad strokes.  
   

So when Paul McGuiness, U2’s manager, forwarded  me "The Girl in the Film"

by Charlotte Eagar, a book that centers on the Sarajevo experience, I might have had the inclination to be skeptical. However, Paul and the U2 band members, have shared a bond with Sarajevo from even before the U2 concert there in 1997. The concert was a celebration of Sarajevo's image as the historic crossroads and shared ground of cultures.

It was U2 channeling all that could be good, shared and universal about the city through the band's own global standing. Then, it was a worthy initiative to herald Sarajevo recapturing its essence in what we all hoped would be the return to normalcy and a truly pluralistic and reintegrated country.
 

Still, I had to approach "The Girl in the Film" with reserve. By my own crude generalization, I veer toward skepticism when it pertains to presentations of people in crisis and war by an outside observer. It can have an adventure tourist texture. Those most affected end up playing a secondary role: more accessories to the plot than being the human story.

However, Charlotte Eagar’s work avoids the pitfall. While Ms. Eagar can present from firsthand experience, “The Girl in the Film” immerses us in the Sarajevo that most would now conveniently redefine.

Sarajevo was not, as some would contend now, about civil war. It was of course about being targeted by shelling and sniping, about a siege denying food, water, medicines. It was also more: about feeling abandoned and forgotten by much of the world that saw the plight of Bosnia & Herzegovina as an inconvenience, or perhaps a rebuttal to what most of us had hoped would be a new world order. At the level of the individual, it was about disillusionment and yet keeping hope alive: not allowing the tide of cynicism to drown you. While in Belgrade, Paris, London, Washington, and New York at the United Nations, it was already being redefined; for the besieged citizens it had the tone of betrayal. They suffered and endured through an assault: physical, psychological and political.

I must admit that I asked Susan Sacirbey to read the novel first. It was a way to buffer myself against potential disappointment, and also to try to get a more objective and experienced reader to give a review. The final evaluation: it is worthy of your time and to revisit a story often retold, but frequently rewritten. (Susan read the book twice).
  

Many Bosnian filmmakers and authors have rightfully waded into this subject, and some have won international acclaim. Charlotte Eagar can claim both authenticity and the perspective of an objective outsider immersed rather than mere visitor to the Sarajevo of the mid-1990’s. And, “The Girl in the Film” does deliver a storyline that grips attention.

The Girl in the Film, by Charlotte Eagar, can be accessed through the publisher at: http://www.reportagepress.co.uk/books-name.php?book=23

Part of the proceeds will go toward charities including one, Education Builds Bosnia, founded by one of my compatriots and heroes, General Jovan Divjak, a Serb who defended Sarajevo along with his Bosniak, (Muslim), Croat, Jewish and other neighbors of that unique city that is my birthplace.

Muhamed Sacirbey

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Author was a Signatory of the Dayton Accords and Foreign Minister of Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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