Waste of time

Great Film overall

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

From the beginning is obvious that this is biased "documentary"... You don't have to wait long to hear blatant lies. In first few minutes author glorifies first Yugoslavia as some great solution in which everyone was so happy and it was so sad it lived only until WWII... In fact it was great deception, and after promises of equality of all nations and constitutional monarchy, it turned out to be Serbian hegemony. On the first day of new state some Croats were killed on main square in Croatian capitol for protesting by Serbian army. 4 Croatian parliamentarians were killed in national parliament by some Serbian representative. After that, Serbian King proclaims dictatorship. After that he changes the name of the state from Kingdom of Serbs Croats and Slovenians to Kingdom of Yugoslavia, with new motto "One nation, one King, one state." What to say, paradise for all... Author forgot to mention how loved was King. So much that he was assassinated...As to reasons for breakup of the second Yugoslavia, I can agree that economic troubles were one factor that contributed, but to say it was the sole reason is ridiculous. Something like that could say only someone that wasn't there, or someone who is crazy... Or just lying.Why doesn't author mention infamous "Memorandum of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts" from 85/86? Or "organized spontaneity" that Milosevic used to abolish autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina? And same "yogurt revolution" approach in Montenegro?And there it is, plain and simple, main reason for breakup... Suddenly, Serbia has 4 automatic votes in Presidency. Other 4 Republics have 1 each. WHO would want to stay in such "equality"??????? Economy?!? Come on... In 89 Markovic even made famous reforms and stabilized Dinar, and situation was much better. And besides that, Yugoslavia was in much better position than rest of communist states of former Soviet block... Did Czech and Slovak's breakup violently?And claim that Serbs just wanted to protect parts of land where they were majority is like fairytale for little kids. We all remember famous cry "Where is one Serb, it is Serbia!". For example, I'm from Dubrovnik and I wonder where is Serbian majority there? Those Serbs in Dubrovnik I know were hiding in basements from "Peoples" army relentless shelling's, just like I did. What was the point of 10 days war in Slovenia? Who was protected there? Sibenik? Zadar? Vukovar? Sarajevo? Tuzla?....Why doesn't author admit what was Serbian story then? That they will stop only when they reach "Virovitica - Karlovac- Karlobag" line... That's all of Bosnia and 90% of Croatia.Author makes note that Croats acquired some weapons illegally, but forgets to mention that weapons of "territorial defense" which belonged to Croatia was illegally confiscated by Yugoslav Peoples Army and given to local Serbs who used it to start armed rebellion on 17. of August 1990. And he forgets to explain how suddenly peoples army which was multinational and had barracks in every corner of Yugoslavia, in just few days become purely Serbian?To be honest I watched first 45 minutes or so, couldn't stand it any more. Just another try to equalize guilt, with the spin this time... It's a world conspiracy, we couldn't do anything to stop it!Well, for sure every side is guilty of something, BUT guilt is not equal, and never will be, we all know it. We all know who started it, who was armed to the teeth and how many shells fell on Serbia until finally world and UN understood who is warmonger in ex Yugoslavia and bombed it silly.BTW, to see that here Izetbegovic is portrayed as the bad boy, the worst one, is simply hilarious. Poor guy didn't know what hit him, Slobo, Karadjic and co. on one side, and Tudjman, Mate Boban and co. on the other. "He wanted all..." Funny!If you look for objective story, look elsewhere...

This documentary is rather familiar Serb propaganda, and is essentially useless for anyone who actually wants to find out about the wars during the 1990s. However, for those of us who actually know about the wars, this film has its uses; it shows us how Serbian propaganda has evolved over the years. Rather than the outright denial of Serb atrocities in earlier Serb propaganda films, Malagurski realises that the evidence for them is too strong, so instead he resorts to obfuscation and relativization to spread blame around to take as much guilt off Serbia as possible. The way in which Malagurski portrays the rise of nationalism is highly disingenuous. He portrays it as though all three nationalisms arose at the same time, and were all equally guilty for the breakup. Thus, he talks about Izetbegovic (claiming he was a Nazi collaborator, a serious charge for which he neglects to provide any evidence), before Milosevic. Watching this, you would not know that before Tudjman and Izetbegovic were elected, Milosevic had already illegally and unconstitutionally ended the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina, crushed the Kosovo Albanians, held a series of nationalist rallies to coerce the other Yugoslavs and the Federal authorities, toppled the government of Montenegro, attempted forcibly to recentralise the Federation, imposed an embargo on Slovenia and driven the Slovene and Croatian Communists out of the 14th Congress of the League of Yugoslav Communists.Malagurski repeatedly takes facts and events out of context to suit his agenda. He asserts that Croatia armed itself illegally under Tudjman, yet neglects to mention that this was because the JNA, illegally and without Federal authority disarmed the Croatian TOs in April 1990, before Tudjman even took office, sponsored a Serb rebellion in August 1990 and prevented the democratically elected government from responding. Malagurski also presents Operation Storm in a vacuum. Falsely claiming that it was 'the largest single act of ethnic cleansing' during the wars (the Serb assault of East Bosnia was an ethnic cleansing operation far larger in scale), he would like us to believe that it was simply waged against an innocent body of Serb civilians. He would like us to forget that it was waged against Serb rebel military forces who had ethnically cleansed the territory of all non-Serbs, and who were using that territory to shell Croatian cities and attack the Bihac enclave in Bosnia, threatening the inhabitants with a second Srebrenica. He also attempts to minimize Srebrenica by pointing to the long disproved claims of atrocities committed by Naser Oric involving attacks out of the Srebrenica enclave; yet wholly neglects to mention the incomparably larger scale Serbian offensives and atrocities which preceded his actions, and which led to Srebrenica becoming an enclave in the first place. Oric's attacks only took place anyway due to Serbian bad faith by blocking humanitarian convoys and shelling the enclave with artillery.It distorts the rebellion of the Krajina Serbs, saying that they merely wanted control of the lands they populated. Malagurski does the same for Bosnia, but anyone who has looked at the ethnic maps of these two countries and the areas which the Serbs attacked, will know that this is a falsehood. If they merely wanted to control lands they populated, why did the JNA and the Serb militias spend so much time attacking and ethnically cleansing Slavonia and Eastern Bosnia, where they formed a small minority? Why did they besiege and destroy Vukovar and Sarajevo (which Malagurski wholly neglects to mention), when they did not form anywhere near a majority in either of these cities? Malagurksi presents the Serb nationalist sound-byte 'If the Croats can separate from Yugoslavia, why can't the Serbs separate from Croatia?' This is an easy argument to refute; 'the Croats' were not given the right to secede from Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was recognized as being 'in the process of dissolution', and the six constituent republics were recognized as the entities that inherited its sovereignty. Thus, it was the six republics – including Serbia – not 'the Croats', whose right to independence was recognized. Serbia was not treated differently from Slovenia, Croatia or Bosnia in this respect, and was entirely free to seek and receive international recognition of its independence, just as they did. In fact, the only group on the territory of the former Yugoslavia whose carving out of a wholly new entity has ever been recognized by the international community is the Bosnian Serbs.Malagurski tries to present the war in Bosnia as a 'civil war' in which Belgrade had little if any direct involvement. He does not mention the fact that the Uzice Corps, a JNA corps based in Serbia, was centrally involved in the Serb conquest of East Bosnia in 1992. Or the fact that all regular Serb forces in Bosnia were under the exclusive and formal control of Serbia and Montenegro until 19 May 1992; or the fact that Serbia's former representative on the Yugoslav Presidency, Borisav Jovic, admits in his own published diary that the VRS was organized by the leaderships of Serbia and the JNA; or the fact that Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic was handpicked for the role by the leaderships of Serbia and the Yugoslav army; or the fact that Vojislav Seselj admitted that his paramilitary forces were under JNA command during their early operations in East Bosnia in 1992 and that their ethnic cleansing operations were directed from Belgrade, or that the JNA illegally and unconstitutionally confiscated the arms of the Bosnian TOs in April 1990 (months before any nationalist party was elected) and redistributed their arms to Serb paramilitaries; or the fact that an officer from Serbia, Momcilo Perisic, directed the JNA's bombardment of Mostar in April 1992, or the fact that the JNA attacked Tuzla and Sarajevo in May 1992. Unfortunately, space prevents me from addressing any more of the distortions in this documentary, but this should give a good picture of what the documentary is like.

...How one movie can try to make up for all bad things during the war in former Yugoslavia. This movie is based on some really ridiculous history statements, as well as "facts" about the war that happened almost 20 years ago.I'm a Croat, and I was unfortunate to live during this war. This move has some true facts, like western powers really wanted to break Yugoslavia into smaller republics, but it lacks some other facts like all money in Yugoslavia going to Belgrade. That and some other things made Croats, Bosnians and especially the Slovenians (richest republic in Yugoslavia) really mad.Movie also tells you chetniks were freedom fighters. Chetniks were like ustashe - fascists. Partizans on the other hand were communists, and were lead by Tito, a Croat, one more thing author of this move forgot to mention. He also forgot about communist crimes against Italians, Croats, Muslims and even Serbs that didn't want communist party.But then again, all this movie tries to achieve is to reduce Serbian guilt. He forgot to mention Z4 plan for Serbians in Croatia. Plan was that Serbs had some autonomy, but remain in Croatia. They rejected that. Also, they expelled all Croats from theirs so called republic "Krajina". He also forgot to mention that in Vukovars population over 90% were Croats, and Serbs bombed the hell out of that city. They completely destroyed it.On the other hand, Croats did a lot of bad things to. And any decent man should recognize that and be ashamed coz of it.But one fact remains. Not even one bomb was dropped on Serbia. Serbia invaded first Croatia, then Bosnia. I have friends in Serbia, and friends that are Muslims in Bosnia. And I don't care about their nationality or their religion. Everything today is political, and we can see political propaganda everywhere. This movie could have been great, but instead, it's just one big political propaganda with little to no respect to more than 200 000 casualties during the war 20 years ago. Shame on the author, even tough he probably doesn't care at all.

The person that made this movie is either very evil or very uninformed. This is an insult to all the people that survived the war. And they know what a big lie this is! I was there, I was a child and they took my childhood, they took my family members, and now they want to take the truth. I hate no one, and everyone knows in a war is nothing just black or just white, every side had it's wrong doings, but this film isn't saying that. This film is trying to erase the guilt of Serbia and put it on others. For everyone who doesn't know the facts, here is a fact that will make everything much clearer and no one (Croate, Muslim or Serb) can say it's not true: The Serbian army fought on Croatian and Bosnian ground. The war happened in Croatia and Bosnia. Were there Croatian and Bosnian soldiers fighting on Serbian ground? No! Was there war on Serbian ground? No! Nationalism is never good, but truth isn't nationalism, and the truth should not be forgotten. So, don't let us forget! Don't allow them to take the truth and the past from us!