A Variety review of an Oscar-nominated film dealing with the Holocaust has branded it as Serbian nationalist propaganda, writes Branko Miletic.
THERE ARE MANY THINGS one could say about the Academy Awards, but allowing the Oscars to be used for point scoring in unresolved Balkan Wars is a new low even for ethically-challenged Hollywood.
This year’s Oscars’ controversy is over director Predrag Antonijević’s entry Dara of Jasenovac, a film about the Word War Two Jasenovac concentration camp that operated for nearly four years by the Nazi-allied Independent State of Croatia (NDH).
According to Variety’s Jay Weissberg, whose savagely honest review of the film deserves a new level of respect to be given to the craft of journalism, writes, among other things:
‘It’s a testament to the cravenness of the Holocaust industry that an undisguised piece of Serbian nationalist propaganda like Peter (Predrag) Antonijević’s “Dara of Jasenovac”, dressed up in concentration camp clothing, can find distribution outside its native land. Less surprising is that it’s been submitted for Oscar consideration.’
Weissberg also has issues with the film’s plot:
It’s unconcealed anti-Croatian, anti-Catholic nativism is baldly designed as incendiary fodder for current rifts between Serbia and its neighbours, while its delight in visualising the sadism, contrasted with childhood innocence, pushes aside any reflection on the dangers of nationalism, murderous racism and genocide, replacing them with cheap sensation and sentiment.
A Holocaust movie designed to stoke animosity against Germans today would be roundly condemned; to not recognise the same problems here is willful blindness.
In other words, the film, which was financed by the Republic of Serbia, is little more than Leni Riefenstahl-esque propaganda, which at the time writing looks like now becoming part of Serbia’s lawsuit against various U.S. media outlets like Variety and the Los Angeles Times, alleging their “genocide denial” stemming from the bad reviews.