Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (Esma's Secret - Grbavica) (2005)
Average Rating: 7.6/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 42 | Rotten: 1
An emotionally blunt and gripping drama, Grbavica deftly explores the emotional toll that all wars take upon those who survive them.
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Critic Reviews: 18
Fresh: 18 | Rotten: 0
An emotionally blunt and gripping drama, Grbavica deftly explores the emotional toll that all wars take upon those who survive them.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 2,856
Movie Info
A woman sees her own traumatic past reflected in the actions of her teenage daughter in this drama from first-time writer and director Jasmila Zbanic. Esma (Mirjana Karanovic) is a single mother trying to raise her teenage daughter, Sara (Luna Mijovic), in Sarajevo in the wake of war. While Esma works as a barmaid at a nightclub run by Saran (Bogdan Diklic), a man on the wrong side of the law, she has trouble making ends meet, and receives occasional benefits payments from a support group for
Cast
-
Mirjana Karanovic
Esma Halilovic -
Luna Mijovic
Sara Halilovic -
Leon Lucev
Pelda -
Kenan Catic
Samir -
Jasna Ornela Berry
Sabina -
Dejan Acimovic
Cenga -
Bogdan Diklic
Saran -
Emir Hadzihafisbegovic
Puska -
Ermin Bravo
Teacher Muha -
Semka Sokolovic
Pelda's Mother -
Maike Höhne
Jabolka -
Jasna Zalica
Plema -
Nada Durevska
Aunt Safjia -
Minka Muftic
Vasvija -
Dunja Pasic
Mila -
Sedina Muhibic
Maja -
Sabina Turulja
Zehra -
Vanesa Glodo
Dzemila -
Sanja Buric
Mirha -
Hasija Boric
Fadila -
Mirza Tanovic
Salesman -
Hendrik Massute
Soldier -
Mirsad Comaga
Singer In The Bar -
Enis Avdic
Classmate -
Ana Jovanovic
Dancer -
Tamara Zaric
Dancer
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All Critics (50) | Top Critics (23) | Fresh (42) | Rotten (1) | DVD (6)
Grbavica increases in power as it progresses. It's a movie about the ways in which people yearn for healing and about the many obstacles that work to prevent it.
Top CriticLike its music, the film's emotions proceed from lament to screaming screed to chorus of hope.
While Grbavica concerns a legacy of hatred, it's also optimistic about Bosnia's physical and emotional reconstruction. If the film's final image doesn't move you, you'd better check your pulse.
The portrayal of a wounded society is compelling, and the film ends on a very modestly hopeful note, appropriate for a country where the 'dreams' have been mostly painful.
The admirable feminist agenda occasionally trips up the narrative, but the film's performances keep it on track.
[Director] Zbanic makes the awful seem commonplace and vice versa, while adding ominous shadows to Esma's untold backstory. The war might be over, but fear and hope remain locked in a rapturous stranglehold amidst the rubble.
This is a slice of Bosnian life, a powerful peek at average people trying to live their average lives despite the extraordinary and unthinkable things that lie in their past.
Lovely in its understatement, quietly but insistently demanding that Esma's story, and those of too many other women, finally be told.
There's really nothing new about the way Grbavica looks at the mother-daughter dynamic. But it's still refreshing to see any film that does so with such honesty and realism.
Zbanic telegraphs parts of the drama a little too easily, but she draws heartbreaking performances from Karanovic and Mijovic.
The kind of well-meaning film that actually gives well-meaning films a good name.
Jasmila Zbanic also deserves our admiration for casting Karanovic, and for making a film of great power about the fate of that ultimate contradiction -- a child born out of hatred.
...a little powerhouse of a movie whose slow gentle build reaches quite a stunning conclusion.
The aftermath of the Bosnian civil war is a rich vein of storytelling material and newcomer writer/director Zbanic mines it well.
Gbravica is a womanly movie in the best sense: [writer-director] Zbanic has a deeply feminine sense of how crisis gets filtered through the moments of daily life.
A poignant and emotionally gripping story of a Bosnian single parent struggling to survive in Sarajevo and carrying deep physical and spiritual wounds from the 1990s wars.
Audience Reviews for Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (Esma's Secret - Grbavica)
Super Reviewer
[font=Century Gothic][/font]
[font=Century Gothic]While "Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams" is not earth shattering, it is certainly compelling enough in its exploration of a country that is still trying to come together after the atrocities committed more than a decade before. It certainly does not help matters that Esma's generation refuses to speak about their experiences.(The only reason she attends group meetings is to collect a government check.) To the viewer, it may seem very clear what she has gone through but to her daughter with a limited sense of history, it is a totally different matter. And maybe that is what the field trip is meant to rectify.[/font]
Super Reviewer
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Movie: ID: 385329477 Title: Grbavica: The Land of My Dreams (Esma's Secret - Grbavica) Release Date: 2007-02-16 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 6 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- Esmas Geheimnis - Grbavica (DE)
- Esma's Secret (Grbavica) (UK)
