My Grandma’s Story Is Mirrored in This Oscar Nomination
“Would you choose saving yourself or attempt to get justice?” is a question asked by the film The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent — and by my grandma’s story
Dear readers,
Some stories are similar because they discuss universal human dilemmas and archetypes, and others because they reflect the challenges of the same historical period. What happens when two stories do both of these things?
I am a bit of a film buff, so I always anticipate the Oscar nominations with curiosity. Not so much because I believe those are necessarily the best movies of the year, but because I want to know if I missed any great films. One such surprise for me this year was The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent.
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent is a short Croatian film nominated for Best Live Action Short Film by the 97th Academy Awards. The nominations have just been announced, so we are yet to see which short film will take the Oscar. If having gotten the Palme d’Or is anything to go by, I think it stands a good chance to win.
The film drew me immediately for its theme and real-life setting, which happen to be the same ones I explore in my comic Brave Hearts. Before I go into any details (and spoilers), I will give you a chance to watch the movie and read (or revisit) my comic. Both are quite short!
Here is the full movie (13 min):
And here is my comic (23 pages):
Let’s get into the analysis and those spoilers!
What are these stories about?
The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent tells the story of the Štrpci massacre in 1993 in Bosnia, at the height of the Bosnian war. A Serbian paramilitary unit forcibly stopped a Serbian train passing through Bosnia. The paramilitary soldiers abducted 18 Bosniaks and one Croat from the train, and later tortured and killed them.
The movie depicts the abduction of the passengers, only implying but not showing what happened afterward. We are shown how one Croatian passenger stood up to the soldiers to protect a fellow Bosniak passenger and allowed himself to be taken instead. Based on the testimonies of this event in real life, this Croatian passenger was Tomo Buzov.
Brave Hearts is an autobiographical story about my grandma’s journey from Bosnia to Croatia in 1991, at the very beginning of the Croatian war. She is traveling to come and meet the newborn me and help my mom during the ongoing air raids. Her bus gets forcibly stopped by Serbian paramilitary soldiers who demand to know why the passengers are traveling to Croatia.
My grandma exclaims she is traveling to visit her newborn granddaughter, which prompts other passengers to say something similar. After laughing it off, soldiers let them go and the bus makes its way to Croatia.
The unlikely hero
Even though the two stories take place in different locations in Bosnia and at different times, the plot follows an identical path. Passengers are on a train/bus, traveling from one city to another, when they get suddenly stopped by a Serbian paramilitary group of armed soldiers.
As the soldiers enter, the tension and unease rise. The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent masterfully decides to put us in the shoes of a character who does not dare to say or do anything. The grim admittance that most of us would remain silent is at the core of identifying with the main character.
This silence simultaneously embodies the feeling of wanting to scream and rebel, and the urge to stay silent, to avoid drawing attention to yourself. Do you attempt to get justice for all, or try to save yourself?
The grim admittance that most of us would remain silent is at the core of identifying with the main character.
In both stories, this tension culminates in one person standing up to the evil soldiers. In the movie, our focus shifts to the hero while we sit in our embarrassing silence. In my grandma’s story, our focus is on her transformation from being afraid to gathering courage and breaking the silence.
Here is where the two stories diverge. The hero in The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent meets a tragic end, while my grandma lives to tell her story.
There is something disheartening about a tragic end to the hero who stood up to the villain. But also, how could the end not be tragic? Under what circumstances would the soldiers let the hero go?
Why my grandma’s story did not end tragically
Since Brave Hearts is one of my first longer stories, I asked my partner if there was anything I could improve in its storytelling. He thought for a bit and said: “Well, maybe the soldiers let your grandma go a bit too easily. Aren’t they like super dangerous? And they just let her go like that?”
As soon as he said that, I felt the magic of my grandma’s story again. They did let her go a bit too easily, didn’t they? But that is exactly how it happened in real life. How grateful I am for that.
She shouted at the soldiers that she was on the bus because she needed to travel to her granddaughter and, miraculously, they just left in peace. I have always graciously interpreted this as my grandma’s big heroic gesture saving everyone on that bus.
My naïve interpretation of the story has always been that proclaiming your love can break even the most evil of people. How could the soldiers take any passengers away if they were just traveling to visit their loved ones?
I don’t know why the soldiers let my grandma and everyone else on that bus go. It was probably not because her message of love spoke to them. The reason must’ve been something disgustingly bureaucratic. Perhaps they were ordered not to kill civilians that early on in the war.
Whatever the reason might have been, I like more the interpretation where my grandma’s message of love changed the soldiers’ minds. I want to believe in a world where someone like my grandma can be a victorious hero and a story like Brave Hearts can happen.
The one who stood up to the villain
The archetype of the unlikely hero who stood up to the villain is a very powerful one in the human psyche. We want to believe that standing up to the villains is what ultimately defeats them. However, analyzing my grandma’s story side-to-side with The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent showed me another facet of war storytelling.
In war, the hero does not always win, regardless of how courageous they are. This leads me to conclude that a hero cannot be measured by how victorious they were, but only by their acts of non-violence. Non-violence is an active pursuit.
This leads me to conclude that a hero cannot be measured by how victorious they were, they can only be measured by their acts of non-violence. Non-violence is an active pursuit.
Pacifism does not mean staying silent. Quite the opposite: it means speaking out. It can also mean sacrificing your own safety so that others can be safer than they were before.
Stories like The Man Who Could Not Remain Silent and Brave Hearts remind us that we are not alone in the active pursuit of non-violence. We walk in the footsteps of great pacifist heroes of told and untold war stories.
My heart goes to all the victims of war.
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Ana