Balkans

To be baptized into the trenches, on film, requires historical knowledge, but also an expensive pyrotechnic arsenal. This can be done, but when it is overdone, the viewer is left with a dazzling shell shock that does less to educate than to confuse. St. George Shoots the Dragon, a Serbian film, brings to life the Balkans at a critical age. It does not shell shock the viewer, but also, fails to enlighten. Serbia, unlike most places in the world, has been at perpetual war for nearly a thousand years. It is therefore likely that an exposition of their participation in battle will accompany a Laconic wit that borders on gallows … More after the Jump…