hrudolph-85358 This film, although extremely emotionally tolling and difficult to watch, is an important film depicting a women's internment camp during the Bosnian war. The main character, Samira, provides an accurate insight into the struggles facing women in these camps. These insights reach beyond our knowledge of the already terrible rapes and assaults that were so prominent, and give a look at the internal struggles facing these women and the effects of this treatment. The beginning of the film depicts the men being separated from the women, brought outside, and all shot to death. This is such a small, short scene in the film which demonstrated the normalcy of these murderous acts. It was't something the movie had to focus in on, it was clear what was happening and no questions had to be asked. The film then moves on to the main focus: Samira's experience in this dehumanizing camp. The film contains little dialogue, however dialogue is unneeded. Samira's facial expressions, body language and actions are enough to depict the pain and suffering she experiences throughout her time in the camp. In fact, the lack of dialogue is a smart choice on the part of Juanita Wilson because it allows the viewers to feel what Samira must have felt and allows them to throw themselves into her character more than if Samira had just described her feelings in words. It also demonstrates how women in these camps really were forced into silence following the things they had to endure. After the first rape, Samira could barely speak. She struggled to recover from this haunting experience and hid away in silence for a while until she realized that she was a human, not an animal as they saw her, and swore to grasp back onto her "womanhood" by putting on makeup and trying to look nice, something the other women disapproved of. This film also depicts the blurred line of morality in these camps. When Samira starts sleeping with the captain, there is a debate among the other women that she overhears. One says they would do the same thing while the other says it's a disgrace. Samira is doing what she thinks she has to do to survive, no matter how wrong it may be. The dynamic between Samira and the captain is obviously one where the captain has the upper hand. This is clearly still a case of rape because consent cannot exist in a camp such as this. Samira is aware of her lack of power in this situation and the captain is aware that Samira will do anything he tells her to do. The captain is portrayed in a way that could be seen as not completely evil, however the fact that he takes advantage of his power in this way makes him just as bad as any other rapist in that camp. The ending to the movie is another smart choice by Juanita Wilson because it shows that the suffering goes beyond liberation from the camp. Samira will forever see the pain she went through when she looks at her child, and will forever be reminded of who the father was. There is no end to suffering no matter how physically free these survivors are.

ntaylor-28563 As If I Am Not There is a film that explores a very harsh reality through one woman's experience in a camp for Bosniak Muslim women. The film greatly succeeds in allowing the audience to better understand and feel the same emotions that these women felt. The director, Juanita Wilson, utilizes her cinematographer and her editor wonderfully as the shots primarily take the place for the almost haunting lack of dialogue. The film features primarily close ups and medium shots of small, tight interiors. When there is an occasional long shot, the background is frequently blurred, especially blurring out the soldiers. This simulates how the protagonist, Samira, felt during her time. The cinematography creates a feeling of anxiety, unawareness, and tension. These women had no concept of the outside world. These camps temporarily became their world. All they knew was what surrounded them. There was no available information about the war, nor how long they would reside there. Any information they could obtain was through rumors that oftentimes proved false. There is a scene in particular that I would like to highlight. In the beginning of the film, there is a long, extended shot of the women reacting to the men being executed in their village. The director deliberately chose to show each and every male walking out of the building, as the women watched through the window. This scene depicting the women's reactions lasted through the entirety of the men being killed. Every bullet was heard, and the scene was not finished until every male had died from each bullet. In any other film, the director or editor would have chosen to cut early as we understand what is happening, and forcing the audience to wait through this entire sequence is unnecessary and repetitive. But Wilson has a message here. That every single bullet took an individual life. We see the wives and mothers react to their husbands and sons being killed, and yes, it is emotional. But knowing that every gunshot heard took a life is greatly impactful. Not showing the execution further allows the audience to be placed within the women's experience. The gunshots heard last for a very long time with great lengths of time between sets of gunshots. These pauses create a slimmer of hope for both the audience and the women that perhaps their loved ones made it out alive by running or resisting. But by the end of the sounds, it is clear that they are all dead. The film features many shots such as this that, although small, create a great impact on placing the audience within the experience itself.

Amelia Earhart "As If I'm Not There" realistically portrays the female-in-combat/camp narrative and the themes that come with it, including enduring the camp experience past its physical confines and a realistic victim who makes questionable choices. Juanita Wilson makes a smart choice to not end the movie when the camp is liberated, instead tracing just the beginning of Samira's hard journey of enduring and "recovering". The journey from camp to liberation in some ways replicates the camp life as it still makes people feel powerless and somewhat like animals. When Samira and the other women have to cross the river and hill to transfer to another set of busses, there is the real possibility that the women could've been shot and killed since they were still at the power of the army men with the guns. When Samira learns that she is pregnant and cannot abort the baby, the infant becomes a physical reminder of the sexual violence she experienced, and we see her struggle to decide whether or not she wants to deal with the pain of the memories of the camp or the pain of the camp plus giving up a baby. Not only that, but the idea of a "perfect victim" is squashed as we realize there may not be just good or just bad people in the world. Samira starts out as the innocent school teacher who moves from the big city to a small village who is then captured by the Serbian army and taken to a rape camp, but we see her egoism when she takes back her sexuality to attract the Captain, one of her captors. The captain himself is portrayed as not necessarily all bad, as he's still a man with a family, even if he may also be a monster. Overall, the main pull of this movie is that the audience gets to experience the realness of how a camp can function as a form of social engineering. While there is little dialogue, we feel every emotion Samira feels through her body language and facial expressions as she is thrown into the worst of situations and must endure, not necessarily overcome. Especially for people who know little about the Balkans in the 1990s or about camps in general, this is a great introduction to the harsh realities people faced and continue to face today. Especially since the lives of women during and post-war are rarely mentioned, this is a powerful piece that deserves more recognition for what it successfully portrays.

Sophia SkÃÂ¥ne As someone else here already said, this is not entertainment cinema. In my opinion it's not even a film in the usual way. Samira a young, well protected and maybe a little naive teacher from Sarajevo leaves her loving family to work in rural village. Shortly after she arrived, war starts and soldiers take her and all the other women captive. As in many wars, the younger women are picked out, locked up separately and are raped, tortured and humiliated. Men are killed, children die, Samira is in constant shock and unable to react.The director is able to give you the feeling of being part of the movie, of nearly being part of the group of women with their fears. There is not much music and also spoken dialog is rare. This movie lives completely from the realistic atmosphere, so much that I had times I was totally frozen and could't breathe. Some scenes are nearly unbearable and I started crying without even noticing it.Yes, we have all heard that it is common in war situations that women are raped from enemy soldiers but this movie showed me that I never gave a real thought about what that actually means. This movie transports the feeling to you one-to-one and it's really hard to stomach. Natasha Petrovic transports her emotions directly to you, without words, mostly with her eyes and her face is really haunting you. If you dare to open yourself emotionally to her character you can feel the fear yourself. Also the end, when Samira comes to Sweden as a refugee, pregnant from rape, all her family dead, completely alone into a country which language she can't speak made me think a lot about how many women must have felt and feel in such situations. I how and if i would cope.This movie is important, because it shows how quickly things can change in war situations, how happy those of us must be who live in peaceful countries and how extremely important it is to keep the peace by all possible means. Absolute recommendation - if you dare!