If you are able to watch sex trafficking, cruelty and torture, see The Whistleblower. Rachel Weisz stands up to sex traffickers in this fact-based thriller about human rights violations in postwar Bosnia. Director Larysa Kondracki relays horrible truths using noir and cinema verite in her feature debut.
The Whistleblower does not let you look away from war atrocities. With a docudrama feel, it is suspenseful, violent and jarring. There is a graphic rape scene. Female slaves are kept in filthy, torture-chamber barracks. Nebraska cop Kathryn Bolkovac is the real whistleblower.
In the opening, Ukrainian teen Irka (the director’s sister Rayisa Kondracki) urges Raya (Roxana Condurache) to travel with her to a job opportunity in Bosnia. Neighbors and even family members lure young women like these. Desperate to escape struggle and poverty, Raya accepts.
A divorced mom, Bolkovac arrives in Sarajevo in 1999 for a six-month contract. The $100,000 tax-free paycheck will allow her to move closer to her daughter. Soon Bolkovac finds herself confronting police, local thugs, and even her fellow United Nations peacekeepers-for-hire.
Bolkovac is outraged to find that her co-workers are complicit or participating in the prostitution slave rings. Diplomatic employees have full immunity, and locals are unlikely to be prosecuted. Bolkovac’s employer at the time, security contractor DynCorp International, works for the United States today in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Best supporting actress Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener) conveys the soul of the film. Bolkovac is urged to look the other way. She refuses.
Glib acceptance reigns. “Those girls are whores of war. It happens,” an agency commander says.
The ferocious activist faces off against peacekeepers and investigates brothels in the night, often alone. Unafraid, Bolkovac does her job. It’s a portrait of a true hero with no need for a costume or special effects.
Bolkovac backs the first successful post-war court decision for a domestic violence victim. She gets noticed. Vanessa Redgrave appears briefly as the real Madeleine Rees, then head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Rees offers Bolkovac a position in the U.N. Gender Affairs Office, where she will investigate sexual assaults. Bolkovac accepts as her peacekeeping contract runs outs.
Other U.N. officials ignore Bolkovac’s revelations about the international sexual assault on girls. The activist eventually was fired from her U.N. position. She won a wrongful termination suit in 2001. Bolkovac co-wrote the screenplay with Eilis Kirwan based on her book The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman’s Fight for Justice.
David Strathairn (Good Night, and Good Luck) is brooding and shifty as Peter Ward, an internal affairs officer who offers to help the whistleblower. Monica Bellucci plays a diplomatic burnout who sees a bit of herself in the idealistic American.
The Whistleblower is a Third World Erin Brockovich. It provokes questions that demand answers. It shows the war within war, violence against women, on a massive scale.
In a respite from violence, Bolkovac has an affair with one of her co-workers Jan (Nikolaj Lie Kaas). In real life she later married her co-worker.
This film conveys important information. I felt honored to watch a woman dare to stand up for justice. I also noted that The Whistleblower does not depict forgiveness from any party. Leaking information to the BBC seems to be Bolkovac’s only option.
Spiritual teachers including Marianne Williamson advocate brief meditation while surrounding horrific situations with light and love. Personal power can be exercised by imagining and intending a better world.
The Whistleblower is roughly hewn in a way that suits its ugly subject. It was filmed quickly on a low budget, mostly in Bucharest, Romania.
One important scene feels staged. The screenplay is choppy and sometimes preachy. Yet great performances from Weisz, Strathairn and others animate this relentless movie. Plato’s Cave comes to mind during a particularly tragic turning point.
A twisty ending provides little relief. The film closes with statistics about continued sex trafficking worldwide.
According to Foreign Policy’s Turtle Bay blog, U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon invited Kondracki to show the film at U.N. headquarters “to top U.N. officials and representatives of governments that supply peacekeepers to U.N. missions.” The screening is scheduled for the week of October 10.
If you like The Whistleblower, you might enjoy: A Call Girl; Miral; Lemon Tree.
Subscribe to Secret Agent Gal Movie Reviews.
The Whistleblower 2010 / R / 2 hours
Cast Overview: Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn, Vanessa Redgrave, Monica Bellucci, Roxana Condurache, Rayisa Kondracki
Director: Larysa Kondracki
Genre: Drama, Thriller, True Life, Drama Based on the Book
Languages: English and Croatian with English subtitles
Recent Comments