"Witnesses" is set in a Croatian town where Josko(Kresimir Mikic), Vojo(Marinko Prga) and Baric(Bojan Navojec) have gone to bury their fallen comrade in arms. While there, they go armed to a home and are surprised to find the occupant, a Serb, is home and accidentally kill him. At the house of Mirija(Mirjana
Karanovic), the mother of the dead soldier, they debate about what to do with what it is in the garage and whether to let it go. Meanwhile, Barbir(Drazen Kuhn) is investigating the crime for the police while Lidija(Alma Prica), a reporter, discovers some inconsistencies in the evidence.
"Witnesses" is an intriguing movie with much to say on the nature of identity in a war where the lines are not clearly drawn and nobody is left unscathed, not the soldiers or the ones left behind. At first the mystery is a compelling one but the movie gets tripped up by its own complex structure, following one character before rewinding and following another to slowly reveal the secrets layer by layer, that only makes events seem murkier than they really had to be.
April 29, 2010
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