10 Minutes directed by Ahmed Imamovic - A Short Review

Starting in Rome everything starts quite simple with a tourist walking into a photography store and asking for some holiday photos to be developed. The storeowner replies he can do this in ten minutes and so the tourist waits outside while he has a smoke. As the camera moves across a clock outside we are taken from Rome to Bosnia. We are introduced to a family in the war torn country and follow the young son Memo. We see the contrast of the war damaged buildings and the people of the country who seem to continue with their everyday lives. The children still play football; on the wall there is even some colorful child like paintings on the apartment walls. 

Yet it is whilst getting food supplies from outside the square is attacked. Memo runs home whilst others attempt to stop him or block his path. The shot is unbroken on steady cam with the suspense only building, as he gets closer to the apartment building. As he arrives home he is presented with the death of his parents who have been executed by Serbian soldiers. As he is dragged out of the room the camera moves back to a clock which then cuts back to Rome. The pictures have developed and the film ends with the tourist receiving his photos.

The film clearly has an agenda to raise awareness on social issues in other countries. It aims to create an understanding in the audience that problems in other countries are just as important as those in your own. The tourist and the film developer are either ignorant to or ignore the issues of Bosnia. They in some ways represent the audience, but once you have watched the film you feel sick, almost repulsed by what you have just seen. The level of ignorance is down to some part the prejudice of all of us. Things only seem to matter to people when they directly affect themselves and by forcing us to see the suffering of others we are no longer able to stand back oblivious to these sufferings. 

Truth be told this is unquestionably a form of propaganda, and yet it is a form of propaganda I most certainly support.