Dir. Larysa Kondrack, Germany/Canada, 2010, 107 mins, some Romanian/ Russian/ Serbian with subtitles
Cast: Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Roxana Condurache
Review by Carol Allen
This is a strong story with a good central performance from Weisz, but first time film director Kondrack’s telling of it is often confused and lacks clarity.
It is based on the real life experience of Nebraskan police officer Kathryn Bolkovac (Weisz), who in 1999 takes a lucrative job offer to go to Bosniaas part of the post war peace keeping force. Appointed head of the UN Gender Office, though her work she discovers that many of her peace keeping colleagues are deeply involved in and profiting from the sex trafficking trade of young women from Eastern Europe, taking advantage of their diplomatic immunity to avoid prosecution. Eventually she blows the whistle on the corruption and finds herself subject to victimization. The film also follows the story of one of the trade’s victims, Raya (Condurache), kidnapped from her mother in the Ukraine, whom Kathryn tries to persuade to testify against her abusers.
There are some strong themes here which demand exposure. Unfortunately Kondrack’s treatment of her subject doesn’t always do it justice. We learn a little about Kathryn’s personal story right at the beginning of the film (divorced, separated from her children and needing money to get them back) but otherwise any characterization comes purely from the actress rather than the script. Her love affair with a Danish colleague is for example very vaguely sketched in and a lot of the other action is hard to follow. Most of the characters lack meat on their bones, though Vanessa Redgrave makes an impression as the UN Human Rights head, who supports Kathryn, as does Strathairn as US Internal Affairs boss. Both roles are though somewhat underwritten. Also in the cast are Benedict Cumberbatch and Monica Bellucci, neither of whom have much to work with. The US practice of using private contractors to handle the administration’s peace keeping role and why that is so open to corruption is by no means totally clear and the storytelling overall is somewhat muddy, as is the cinematography.
Condurache though makes an impression as Raya and there are some strong scenes which reach through the murk to make an emotional impact, most notably what could have been a gruesome sequence, where one of the girls is horribly tortured for daring to try to speak out. Kondrack handles this well, mercifully avoiding showing us the details but showing the effect through the faces of the victim and the other girls, who are forced to watch.
Extras include interviews with the cast and crew.
xx - posted on 23/05/2012 13:13:28
