Critics reviews

This first feature from Bosnian director/writer Zbanic is an almost Dogme 95 slice of life after hell... The war might be over, but fear and hope remain locked in a rapturous stranglehold amidst the rubble.

The story builds to a climactic revelation that, unfortunately, comes very late in the game and could have been handled more adroitly.

Much of the emotional power of “Grbavica” comes from the exceptional performances of Ms. Karanovic and Ms. Mijovic...

Grbavica is a surprisingly vibrant, at times even joyous, study of the way life goes on even after the most intolerable suffering.

What might have been a cathartic exploration of the trauma of war thus comes off as a pedantic exercise in “growing up” and “moving forward.”

One may posit a correlative between Esma’s emotional state and the lack of pretense to the filmmaking, but Zbanic’s gentle approach is more televisual than cinematic.

The film fails to deliver convincing personal drama and does not do justice to its historical and political themes.

As engaging as these story strands are, they're not the most important business at hand. Trouble is, the film leaves the big reveal too close to the closing credits for comfort.

The final revelation — the titular secret — is moving but hurried, but Jasmila Zbanic’s debut still offers up some stunning scenes, supported by a compelling air of authenticity.

Underwriting and uneven pacing lend the film the odd clumsy patch, but overall it’s moving and relevant, and dignified by a superbly judged central performance by Karanovic.

The plot may be thin, with a soft belly in the middle, but Zbanic compensates with a strong gallery of secondary characters, all trying to forget the past and getback to normal life.

This fiction debut will doubtless remain one of the memorably genuine and upsetting films about the true nature of war. Facing the unspeakable matters of human humiliation, naked to the bones – however, there is nothing to be seen here about the atrocity of violence which afflicts thousands and thousands of people, let's name them immediately: women – it is harrowing, shaking. Its emotional power, thanks to an unadorned simplicity, is profoundly far-reaching.