It's interesting that this story is told from the POV of someone Jewish, in love with a Serbian woman, with ample foreshadowing of the holocausts both would face in the 20th century. Few people realize a million Serbs were killed by the Austrians in WWI, including many reprisals on civilians. There's also scanty knowledge of the systematic extermination of Serbs by fascists in WWII. And of course, scanty knowledge, readily dismissed, of the extent Austria was going to to provoke a war with Serbia for years before the Archduke's visit.
But if you follow the way they are referred to in this script, and the treatment they receive the picture is painted accurately. You know, things like "Those dirty Serb dogs," "It's a Serb-owned business, let's loot it." "Let's go wipe them off the face of the earth."
It was Austrian people, apparently, making this film, acknowledging freely that this was a story of a tiny, indefensible country sitting in one of those hapless superpower thoroughfares, who is constantly overrun, who should have died out, like the Jews, centuries ago, but here they still are.
I see some of the reviewers are doubting how believable the railroad-to-Baghdad theory is that's put forth in the script, but comprising the land route between Europe and the Middle East, there's always something somebody wants, and whoever wants to be powerful is always sticking their hand in that cookie jar, have been for millennia, all the way back to the Romans.
It was quite refreshing to see a depiction of this historical/ political reality, instead of the 'Serbs as Fascists' delusional propaganda that has been rife in western media in recent decades. (Another cookie jar saga there.) I had a good laugh at the remark in the script the Austrian bureaucrats were making about the outrageous demands they'd make on Belgrade to be sure they were refused. Apparently somebody in Austria was listening to a similar Belgrade conversation ca. 1999.
Thank you Austria: Krausz, Ambrosch, Prochaska. It's nice to know there are people who have observed the nature of Serbia vs. the 20th century and see who the players really are, and the true nature of the tragedy.
But if you follow the way they are referred to in this script, and the treatment they receive the picture is painted accurately. You know, things like "Those dirty Serb dogs," "It's a Serb-owned business, let's loot it." "Let's go wipe them off the face of the earth."
It was Austrian people, apparently, making this film, acknowledging freely that this was a story of a tiny, indefensible country sitting in one of those hapless superpower thoroughfares, who is constantly overrun, who should have died out, like the Jews, centuries ago, but here they still are.
I see some of the reviewers are doubting how believable the railroad-to-Baghdad theory is that's put forth in the script, but comprising the land route between Europe and the Middle East, there's always something somebody wants, and whoever wants to be powerful is always sticking their hand in that cookie jar, have been for millennia, all the way back to the Romans.
It was quite refreshing to see a depiction of this historical/ political reality, instead of the 'Serbs as Fascists' delusional propaganda that has been rife in western media in recent decades. (Another cookie jar saga there.) I had a good laugh at the remark in the script the Austrian bureaucrats were making about the outrageous demands they'd make on Belgrade to be sure they were refused. Apparently somebody in Austria was listening to a similar Belgrade conversation ca. 1999.
Thank you Austria: Krausz, Ambrosch, Prochaska. It's nice to know there are people who have observed the nature of Serbia vs. the 20th century and see who the players really are, and the true nature of the tragedy.
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