The film dramatizes the events of the
Srebrenica massacre, during which
Serbian troops sent
Bosniak men and boys to death in July 1995 led by Serbian convicted
war criminalRatko Mladić. Named for its protagonist, Quo Vadis, Aida? exposes the events through the eyes of a mother named Aida, a schoolteacher who works with the
United Nations as a translator. After three and a half years under siege, the town of
Srebrenica, close to the northeastern Serbian border, was declared a UN safety zone in 1993 and put under the protection of a
Dutch battalion working for the UN.
On
Rotten Tomatoes,
100% of 78 critic reviews are positive, and the average rating is 8.8/10. The critics consensus on the website states: "Quo Vadis, Aida? uses one woman's heartbreaking conflict to offer a searing account of war's devastating human toll."[13] According to
Metacritic, the film received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 97 out of 100 from 16 critic reviews.[14] It was declared Metacritic's Official Best Movie of 2021 and Best International Movie of 2021.[15]
Ryan Gilbey of New Statesman stated "Žbanić has shaped the factual into an eloquent and conscientious picture that purrs along as suspensefully as any ticking-bomb thriller, using Ðuričić's performance as its engine".[16] Jude Dry of IndieWire wrote that "Žbanić lays bare the deeply human toll of violence and war",[17] and Peter Bradshaw wrote in The Guardian that "after 25 years, the time has come to look again at the horror of Srebrenica, and Žbanić has done this with clear-eyed compassion and candor".[18]
Jessica Kiang for Variety states that "this is not historical revisionism, if anything, Quo Vadis, Aida? works to un-revise history, re-centering the victims’ plight as the eye of a storm of evils — not only the massacre itself, but the broader evils of institutional failure and international indifference".[19] Kevin Maher writes in The Times that "it's incendiary, furiously committed film-making from the director
Jasmila Žbanić, who also adds an unnerving ending about the burden that Srebrenica survivors still bear."[20]
Other critics underline the film's ambiguous ending. "The final act of “Quo Vadis, Aida” [...] makes clear that many other perpetrators escaped with impunity," writes film critic A. O. Scott in The New York Times. "The war ended, and some version of normalcy returned, but Žbanić takes no consolation in the banal observation that life goes on. It’s true that time passes, that memory fades, that history is a record of mercy as well as of savagery. But it’s also true — as this unforgettable film insists — that loss is permanent and unanswerable."[21]
Accolades
Jasmila Žbanić (left) received critical acclaim for her screenplay and direction, and
Jasna Đuričić for her performance in the film.