Quo Vadis, Aida?

Based on true events, Quo Vadis, Aida? follows Jasna Ðuričić’s title character as she attempts to keep her husband and two sons safe during the Srebrenica genocide of 1995. It’s intense subject matter that’s employed to mostly compelling effect by Jasmila Žbanic, as the filmmaker delivers a consistently engaging drama that’s been peppered with a handful of thoroughly intense sequences – with, as well, the movie benefiting from a second half devoted almost entirely to Aida’s progressively frantic efforts at hiding her family from Serbian soldiers. There’s little doubt, too, that Žbanic does a nice job of portraying the entirely toothless response of the various UN peacekeepers on the scene, and it goes without saying, certainly, that the picture receives plenty of mileage out of Ðuričić’s sympathetic (and progressively engrossing) turn as the justifiably terrified central character. And although Žbanic doesn’t quite stick the landing – the movie sluggishly continues a little longer than one might’ve preferred – Quo Vadis, Aida? nevertheless comes off as a sporadically spellbinding piece of work that tells a powerful, important story.

*** out of ****