TIFF 2020: Quo vadis, Aida? Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

History is ripe with stories that deserve to be told with film often taking on that perilous task. However, these films don’t often succeed at that task but that doesn’t make these stories any less important. Quo Vadis Aida is the latest film based on a true story that tackles the human side of the Bosnian genocide of the mid 1990s. Though the film wasn’t without its equally touching and brutal moments, it unfortunately loses steam and getting swept up within its own narrative all while failing to do the story of the genocide and its victims justice. The ultimate result is an overall chore of an experience lifted by a strong central performance.

Quo Vadis Aida, which translates to Where are you going Aida?, literally sees the victims and the others affected by the Bosnian genocide as spectators to the story of the film’s central character, a teacher and UN translator named Aida (Djuricic). As the situation and ensuing humanitarian crisis worsened, all she cared about was protecting her family who were part of the thousands displaced by the war. The film essentially saw Aida run back and forth across the UN base, translating for the UN forces while countering their increasingly frustrating bureaucracy as they fought what appeared to be a losing battle against the Serbian forces attempting to conquer the small town of Srebrenica where Aida and her family were from. Despite good intentions, this grew tiresome rather quickly.

While those familiar with the Bosnian genocide will more or less know how that saga ended, Quo Vadis Aida is a film that needed more depth both with the story and the character of Aida. Keeping things from her perspective limits the film as a whole but that family storyline did have its touching and heartbreaking moments and Djuricic’s strong lead performance and range as Aida certainly sells her dedication to her family and her subsequent frustration. Though it may have been a dangerous time, she did not let that deter her and that strength was still somewhat compelling to watch.

At the end of the day, Quo Vadis Aida may tell an important story, however, it is one that gets lost in the shuffle of a central story taking too much focus away, enough to make one think that the filmmakers weren’t sure how to tell the story.

still courtesy of TIFF

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.