The Weight of Chains

I watched the film after I read that it "... takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in ... Yugoslavia." The documentary failed at doing so. On the technical side, it is a fine documentary, the wicked, dark sense of humor makes it watchable, and if you're looking for a superficial, anti-western story about Yugoslavia, I guess you can enjoy watching it. The film is probably doing great in Russia. The authors anti-western, and "pro-Serb" (more like pro-tycoon) view has, as a result, some serious flaws in the story... He used interviews with people not known to the wide audience, presenting them as "former adviser of the president", without saying the name of the president - Slobodan Milosevic, which makes all the difference. How relevant this "adviser" guy is, shows his criticism on the West allowing low-rate credits for Serbia, as an evil scheme to increase Serbian debt(?). When the privatization was mentioned, the author failed to stress the role Milosevic's era tycoons had, letting the audience think it were western companies who bought and destroyed all the factories in Serbia. The film looks like a bad compromise between producers, director(s), author... at the same time, the author is anti-war, anti-nationalist, yet he has a soft view on Serbian war crimes - barely mentions Srebrenica Massacre, says nothing about war crimes on Kosovo, and Chetnics are presented as pro-Yugoslav freedom fighters. Slobodan Milosevic is portrayed as almost an average politician. The film makes a dark spotlight on the pro-EU parties in Serbia, making it easy for an average viewer to come up with a belief that anti-EU parties are the solution, when in fact the other side is even worse than current parties in power, hence the majority of the people voted them. If the author could have made that step back, and separate himself from the Serbian daily politic, it would be an important documentary on former Yugoslavia, Serbia, and US/EU involvement... but as I said before, it totally failed. Too bad, cos US and EU politics on former Yugoslavia was completely wrong from the start, still is, and someone should definitely publish a good, and important story about that.

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.

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.

This documentary purports to describe why Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990's. Surprise, surprise, it was all a US Imperialist plot! Who knew?!

Actually, this documentary is not quite as simplistic as that. It turns out that the EU is also evil, as is the IMF, NATO, and anyone who can't see that a country dominated by a communist elite is so much better than a country dominated by a capitalist elite.

This documentary does provide a different point of view though and is a thought-provoking if you can stomach the absolute banality of it's completely biased pro-Serb viewpoint and the sing-song style of it's insufferably-I'm-smarter-than-you narrator

Great documentary! Shall we no more hear "What happened to Yugoslavia"! Love it that it is done in English with a plethora of people knowledgeable about this issue and not just people who second guess. Facts presented in this movie are too hard to ignore considering their sources and it is all well tied in with never-before-seen footage, chronology of the events and Boris's great sense of humor. The message being "real heroes are not the top heads who started the whole war, but rather every day people who didn't want the war" it is hard not to sit down and loose yourself in this movie and the history. May we have more coming from Boris. :)