To start off, this film was one of the most gruesome and intense films I ever laid eyes on. Through illustrating scenes of women being raped, women being abused and women treated inhumanely, the director definitely wants her audience to sympathize and empathize with the women that were affected physically and mentally. Even though some of the women survived the camp, there experiences at the camp is something that will never go away and thus there lives will never be the same as well. The way women were traumatized is unheard of through history to be honest.
Additionally, this film was extremely accurate in terms of how women were treated and how they proceeded once they were released from being held captive at the camp. Also, the director wants her audience to realize that monsters come in all forms, which is illustrated through the juxtaposition between the way the soldiers treated her vs the way the captain treated. Even though it seemed like the captain treated her better, towards the end of the film the captain chokes her, which illustrates that he is just like the other soldiers that raped her. This movie did a great job of illustrating the ethnic internment of Bosniaks during the Bosnian War.
Review of As If I Am Not There
