NOTES on Welcome to Sarajevo
1. Editing techniques: first-person camera, point of view used in opening scene—we ride down the streets of Vukovar after it has been “ethnically cleansed” by the Serbs
2. Initial montage (credits)—shows images from the cosmopolitan Sarajevo from the 1970s.
3. Moving camera: Michael and his producer, Jane, entering the Holiday Inn, where all the journalists work; later Michael and his cameraman walking down a hallway to their rooms. Examples of extensive use of Steadicam to recreate sense of space being occupied by journalists, also sense of “enclosure” and “imprisonment.” Steadicam also used in introduction to Risto, the Bosnian Serb (Muslim) who becomes a major character in the film (he gets job as driver for Michael).
4. Sound/image editing:
Bread queue scene is good example—also incorporates still image to dislocate the viewer—then cut to camera’s point of view as photo-journalist begins to tape the carnage. Ambient sound at first. Then classical music to complement images—music tied to cello playing in the last scene of the film. Reaction shots of Henderson come in after documentary images to show he is the way through which we enter this scene emotionally.
Another example of sound/image editing is the interview of the woman who runs the orphanage. As tape progresses, notice the reaction shot of Jane—she gives total attention to the screen as the compelling interview unfolds. The woman talks about burying children in the front yard so that the world may notice what is happening to them. Cut to shots of three graves. Sound goes off as we watch the editing—then introduces cut to the song “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” as an American cargo plane lands in Sarajevo.
A third example is in the scene where we see the ITN report on the Serb concentration camps. Sound is dropped as we watch 4 shots of the prisoners. Then we come back to the Holiday Inn, inside the editing suite and watch Henderson walk away (Steadicam)—allowing us to focus on his emotions as he processes this new level of horror. Then a cut to a wide shot of Henderson and Flynn walking down the hallway—matching cut to earlier example of movement of characters through confined spaces.
5. Henderson and children: first example is Michael and Greg running after the little altar boy-—he strange encounter, where the boy yells something at them. Note the cut to slow motion=Henderson’s point of view—captured at a dream-like speed. The boy has touched him in a special way. Similar connection made in later scene when Henderson and Greg and Risto encounter the little girl whose parents died at the bread queue. Emphasis there on point of view and reaction shots, and then the jump cut to the little girl crying. Last shot she is shown in close up, stands up and walks away from the men down the hallway. Third encounter is in a dream from Henderson’s point of view—slow motion of the altar boy running down the street—his blood-stained garment in view. Cut to Henderson waking up. He stands up and looks out the window of the Holiday Inn and sees the tracer fire in the distance. Fourth encounter is another dream scene—Henderson sees a young girl carrying sticks for fires in a baby buggy.
6. Good example of editing to accumulate is the series of shots of children being interviewed for a story by Henderson. Reminiscent of Antoine’s interview with psychiatrist—but in this case, each cut shows a different child.
7. Good example of parallel editing (and/or parallel editing within construct of a montage) in the scene where the father sits at a table and cries as he looks down at the photo of his son in a concentration camp. Cuts to two tracks—one of world leaders and officials, another of images of men in concentration camps.
8. Tendency to make the political statements too overt, too literal in the film: the scene where Henderson walks through a farm yard and sees numerous dead bodies—all murdered by Serbs, and then sees a man hanging from the house. Cut to political leader of the Serbs—and of course, he denies any charges of ethnic cleansing. Problem here is A = B too literal, heavy-handed. Compare this to later scene of Henderson on the bus in the convoy and suddenly he hears a man yelling from the road. He looks back, and from his point of view we see a young naked man (wearing tennis shoes) running after the bus. Here the image is more ambiguous, and perhaps suggests a different level of political protest—the young man is naked and yet defiant. Ideas open up from this cut rather than being made in a didactic, preachy tone.
9. After the bus is raided by Serbs out in the middle of nowhere, cut to a wide shot of the scene—music up—and this begins a short montage of wide shots of the convoy starting up again before we return to the bus and see interactions between principal characters. The sound here provides a kind of dirge-like accompaniment of the latest tragedy we have witnessed.
10. Henderson calls his wife from the port of Split before taking Emira back to London. As he talks, camera moves past him and tracks in on Emira, who is asleep on a bed behind him. Cut to a montage of Emira in London—happy times—Christmas, her birthday, her hair longer, and finally images of Emira running free in a park. Last image is particularly effective because of its metaphorical component—she is running free, she is a child again, there are no constricted spaces (lower floor of bombed out building was site of orphanage)—no narrow hallways.
11. Henderson packing up to go back to Sarajevo to see Emira’s mother. Quiet scene where movement of Henderson suggests his uneasiness, his fear that he will lose Emira. Cut to dream scene where we see a young girl pushing a baby buggy laden with sticks (for making a fire) down a bombed-out street—an image of Emira if she had stayed behind?—cut to Henderson waking up. He goes to the window and opens it—matching cut from earlier scene where he looked through the window in Sarajevo. Here everything is green and open and free. Cut to tracking shot as he moves through hall to first bedroom and kisses two of his children. Cut to Henderson, tracking shot as he enters second bedroom and kisses Emira. No dialogue. Just movement and sadness and recognition of his bonds to the children.
12. When Henderson has Emira talk to her mother in Sarajevo, notice the reaction shots of the mother as she sees her daughter on videotape—how happy that makes her—and then the strange phone call between mother and daughter (Emira speaks English first, then Bosnian). Emira decides she wants to stay with Henderson and not her mother. Cut to next scene—Henderson smiling as he rides in the car away from that scene.
13. Last scene of film: Henderson sees a young altar boy again—is it the same one as in the first scene? More movement—but this time Henderson is part of a crowd of people moving through space, an open street, no one seems to fear snipers—and Henderson and the altar boy melt into the crowd—all of whom are focused on the cellist on the high ground. Great use of reaction shots here, and then a last heavy-handed political statement, but fortunately embedded in cuts of Emira back in London—Henderson has found one way of resolving the craziness and pain of war by bringing Emira back to live with him. Last cut is to the cellist, whose defiant eyes are revealed by the camera—a last symbol of hope and courage?
Notes written by
Robert Yahnke
Copyright, Robert E. Yahnke, © 2001
Professor, General College, Univ. of Minnesota,
Reprinted by permission of the author for educational use only