Director Angelina Jolie goes to war with 'Blood and Honey'

"I've always tried to step outside my comfort zone. Sometimes that can be good and useful for hopeful things like this," said actress Angelina Jolie, who has written and directed her first film. (Associated Press)Ive always tried to step outside my comfort zone. Sometimes that can be good and useful for hopeful things like this, said actress Angelina Jolie, who has written and directed her first film. (Associated Press)

As she developed her story about lovers on opposite sides in the Bosnian War, Angelina Jolie drew on everything she had learned while traveling to combat zones. But she started at home, imagining herself and partner Brad Pitt at such extremes.

In! the Lan d of Blood and Honey, Ms. Jolies writing-directing debut, hurls two lovers a Bosnian Muslim woman and a Bosnian-Serbian man from their tender relationship before the war into the horrors of the conflict and rape camps, where brutality, betrayal and degradation are daily matters.

The closest relationship in my life is Brad, Ms. Jolie said in an interview for the film, which opened in limited release Friday and expands in January. Its the man-woman relationship. So for me to put myself in a position to be able to write from, it would be, well, what if it was me, and what would it be like? And what would it take? Could I ever turn on him? Would this ever happen? Would he ever turn on me? So you try to put yourself inside, and thats how that relationship started.

The result is worlds away from the vanity projects some superstars end up with when they play at directing. Ms. Jolie holds nothing back in depicting the savagery of the war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s as ancient ethnic rivalries reignited after decades of communist rule.

As a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations, Ms. Jolie, 36, had visited Bosnia and felt a growing compulsion to help dramatize a conflict about which the world at large had been misinformed or even indifferent.

Zana Marjanovic (left) and Boris Ler are caught up in the war in Bosnia in the film written and directed by Angelina Jolie titled "In the Land of Blood and Honey." (Film District via the Associated Press)Zana Marjanovic (left) and Boris Ler are caught up in the war in Bosnia in the film written and directed by Angelina Jolie titled In the Land of Blood and Honey. (Film District via the Associated Press)

When the war broke out, Ms. Jolie herself was a teenager with other things on her mind than conflict in a distant land.

I was being a 17-year-old. I knew only a little bit about it, Ms. Jolie said. It just felt very far away, and until America got involved, I dont even remember any headlines in our papers.

As the years passed, Ms. Jolie remained busy with other preoccupations - Hollywood party girl, Academy Award winner for Girl, Interrupted, marriages to actors Jonny Lee Miller and Billy Bob Thornton, the latter a wild love affair that was a gold mine for gossip tabloids.

Then came the action comedy Mr. and Mrs. Smith, in which Ms. Jolie and Mr. Pitt starred as married assassins gunning for each other. Home-wrecker headlines followed as Ms. Jolie took up with her co-star, who ended his marriage to Jennifer Aniston.

Ms. Jolie already had begun her humanitarian makeover, adopting a child from Cambodia and using her celebrity to shine light on children in peril, the plight of refugees and other causes around the world.

As she and Mr. Pitts family has grown they now have three adopted and three biological children Ms. Jolies image has transformed from sinner to saint.

Ive always tried to step outside my comfort zone. Sometimes that can be good and useful for hopeful things like this, Ms. Jolie said, referring to her film. And sometimes, when youre younger, it can be very destructive and a bad thing.

Visiting war zones changed her perspective, but it was the home front taking on children that made the big difference.

That was what changed me completely, and then I knew that once you decide to become a parent, you can no longer be in any way self-destructive or selfish. You live for someone else, and its over. Its all over, Ms. Jolie said, laughing.

But in the greatest way, because the chaos no wild days as a punk are ever as interesting or as chaotic as my life with my children is now. They can out-punk anybody you know.

Story Continues

View Entire Story

Copyright 2011 The Associated ! Press. A ll rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


Comments

Post a Comment