As If I Am Not There

Samira is a young woman from Sarajevo who moves to a tiny village to take up a post as a supply teacher. It is her first job and her first time away from her family, but this taste of independence will cost her dearly. This is the beginning of the Yugoslavian war and soon soldiers come to ethnically cleanse the village. After killing the men, they load the women, including Samira, onto buses and take them to an isolated internment camp where she is one of those chosen for their entertainment; she, along with a handful of other women, is repeatedly raped with great brutality.

The story is told with a studied spareness. Dialogue and characterisation are minimal, the violence graphic. Whilst this is undoubtedly powerful, there comes a point when it begins to feel manipulative. It is only when, half way through, Samira acts to change the course of her internment that the film begins to accrue some necessary moral complexity. [Keir Roper-Caldbeck]