Go West

Somebody smart once said something to the effect if there is a need for a prologue, than director did not do his job correctly. I cannot agree more. Unfortunately Go West spends first two and a half minutes on prologue, boring prologue to be precise. Completely unnecessary. From there on, the movie spends more time on unnecessary details, more voice from the off, more explanations of unnecessary details, watering down the film I am sure would mean a lot if done as it should.

It must have been hard to come up with the idea of two homosexuals running away from the Sarajevo, because Sarajevo was never eager on homosexuals. I have spent there more than half of my life and I have met only two openly gay man. Compare that to my current place of living where I know at least a dozen openly gay man. Attacking homophobia in Sarajevo is very dangerous and brave undertaking, and for that I need to congratulate Ahmed Imamovic and Enver Puska. That was brave. Unfortunately brave writers and directors do not equal a great movie. However, this one is a good movie, a bit clumsy in some areas, but overall quite watchable.

If you expect something like Queer as Folk, than you will be disappointed. No sex scenes to that level. I guess because actors and the rest of the crew were quite scared for touching the topic. Well, that would be all but Tarik Filipovic, one of two main actors, who played homosexual in another Bosnian movie, dark comedy "Dobro Ustimani Mrtvaci". I guess the fact he lives in Zagreb, Croatia gives him more freedom to take on roles that bring hate mail and death threats that could eventuate into something awful if he was living near those who wrote them.

Watching this movie will annoy you. Sometimes the characters do not act as sane people would, and everything is a bit stretched, but this movie has other good points and is important maybe not as a great movie, but as a first movie that tackles homosexual love in Bosnia and Herzegovina.