Il peso delle catene

This movie really embodies what nearly every single UN commander has said about Yugoslavia: "Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only counterproductive but also dishonest. According to my experience all sides were guilty but only the Serbs would admit that they were no angels while the others would insist that they were...I believe none of my successors and their forces saw anything on the scale claimed by the media." - Lt. Gen. Satish Nambiar. Head of UN forces deployed in Yugoslavia from 1992-1993.

There's retired Major General Lewis Mackenzie as well as many other former UN commanders that have said the same thing, and this film echoes that sentiment, which is such a refreshing change from the diatribe of propaganda that passed as news, and facts, on the Yugoslav civil wars.

It does so with the sarcasm of Michael Moore, and with great integrity. What Western media has ignored is that Serbs did not start the war. No claims are made about Milosevic being a saint, just that it was not what the Western media claimed it to be, the so-called "good guys" did worse things than the "bad guys". The involvement of the West in supporting and fuelling separatists in Yugoslavia cannot be ignored. With many shocking revelations, it keeps you interested from start to end. Ever wonder who really started the breakup? Who really tried to salvage it, and why? Well, you get to find out.

You will go from Western interference before the outbreak, to finding out why Croatia and Bosnia broke away illegally, to interference during, and how the people of Yugoslavia were better off without the country being ripped apart. The glamour of EU membership, so highly sought after by the former Yugoslav countries, is shown to not be what it seems to be when you're a small economy.

What will be found is how many sources are by people not affiliated with the Balkans. Canadians, Americans, people who only care about truth, and justice. This makes it that much harder to say that this film is propaganda when the sources are well researched, unbiased, and make heavy use of UN testimony, and the current story on what happened, according to the West, mostly falls on American government and PR company (Ruder Finn, Cohn & Wolfe, Gibbs & Soell, to name but a few) press releases. Everyone used propaganda, but the key difference is Milosevic never hired any PR companies for the world. The one faction that didn't do such a thing, and is it such a coincidence then that they are labelled as the bad guys? Not even Milosevic, but the whole people?

It combines a lot of what is readily known, but not readily reported in the West, with plenty of tidbits of information that is not so easily found. Even people who study the Balkans in university will be surprised at what they simply did not know before watching, or the lies that were thought of as truth.

And for what? Aside from letting the truth be known, this movie brings forth a message I dare say is just as important for the former citizens of Yugoslavia: reconcile, why they are much better off together than they could ever be alone, and why it is so. And that is what makes this film better than most, that message. Bring out the raw truth for all to see, and move on and work together. No anger, no bitterness. Something that the Balkans could learn a thing or two about. See this film.

I watched the first phase of the Balkans 90s conflict play out whilst studying for a degree in Peace Studies and Conflict Resolution at a UK college... it was made immediately part of the course. Since then I've made a constant effort to keep an eye of how things have progressed - right up to the recent duping of the people in Kosovo - who seem to welcome being made one big US/NATO base.

Anyway - apart from a 5 part BBC series - nothing has tackled this issue in the depth it demands till now apart from this Documentary. Ignore the handful of reviewers who claim it's "Serb propaganda" - that's just idiotic - in fact this is one of the best produced and written documentaries I've seen on contemporary geopolitical monkey-business to date! The interview snatches are all from erudite commentators, the chronology is unravelled in a comprehensive manner and footage they've amassed really adds a human quality to things. The footage of elderly Serb and Croat neighbours being forced to pack-up and leave after living together without and issue is heart-wrenching (and definitely not staged before someone suggests this).

Also - by peeling away the propaganda the Serbs have been framed with for so long - we finally begin to hear the real ramifications of the war... which was partially a CORPORATE war. Bosnitch adds some amazing facts - such as the Yugo car industry being terminated by clever bombing - and the take-over by US firm Philip Morris by Clinton agreeing to bomb three times a very successful Serb cigarette factory - so much for military targets??! Recommended. A total and much needed breath of air.

Ignore the radical reviewers, there is a lot of solid information here, so solid that Croats and Bosnians "wasted" 2 hours of their life to watch this films and try to convince you not to see it.

Amazing how denial plays a role so deep in all this matter, there were no innocent parties in this ugly war, they all share the same amount of responsibility.

I have studied the subject and seen several documentaries on this chapter of recent history in Europe, the one thing that is Crystal clear is that Croats, Bosnians and Serbs will never acknowledge their crimes.

Croats were no saints in this war and probably they should carry 40% of the responsibility of the break up of the country, the remaining 60% split between Serbs and Bosnians

You must see this one because is one of the few documentaries that tells the other side of the story, of course, understanding that a balance between what you see here and what the other side presents can give you a more neutral opinion.

All those dismissing this documentary, calling it propaganda, lies and so on, surely are those who know better but can't accept their own role in the crimes the helped commit and now want to make everyone believe they did nothing wrong.

Most people are not so naive as to really believe that Croatia and Bosnia didn't do anything wrong or that Serbia did it all by themselves, that is the Croat and Bosnian cheap propaganda, play victims and blame someone else.

Serbs must accept as well that not everyone was against them, part of the blame is within their own politicians.

In all Croatians, Bosnians and Serbian committed crimes against humanity, BUT there is a pale bright light, Croatians stared opening companies in Serbia, they can do business there but Serbians are not yet welcome in Croatia, lets hope this will change one day.

This is a Serbian documentary but anybody who watches it from the area of former Yugoslavia will learn that everything is not black and white and it never is.

Not many Croats will have the willpower to watch the whole documentary but they should not because of the part about politics before the war and war itself but for the second part that talks about economy and what has happened to us all after the wars.

Pay attention to the graph of the Yugoslavia and the debt that each country accumulated.

Shame that the author was not more neutral because many people will not see it because of it.

At the end its better to be a colony then to kill each other.

I have just watched this, and i have to say that it is very good documentary.

From my point of view as a Serb, when i hear all of these lies, delusions, that lead to massive wars, i feel such an anger, and i'm asking myself, how can someone betray everything that we are, because of the money, and personal good, what happened to moral, what is going on with f....ng world!? Yes i know, this is happening from the beginning of the world, but still.. overall everyone who is interested why and how it really happened, just watch this, maybe not 100% objective as i read in some comments from other people view, but none the less, very informative.

I hope one day we all realize what is really going on, and turn to the right direction.