For Those Who Can Tell No Tales

• October 28, 2013
• Article

We explore the gripping power of suggestion in Jasmila Zbanic’s For Those Who Can Tell No Tales.

Kym is a performer living in Sydney; she is preparing herself for a trip to Bosnia and Herzegovina, a journey that she feels quite excited about it. She even packs some history books to take with her to read on the plane. Among these books is a guide with many suggestions of what to see and where to stay in the country. In it she reads about a lovely hotel in the town of Visegrad where she decides to stay for a night. However, she is not able to sleep well that night, feeling anxious and weird.

When she returns to Australia, her curiosity leads her find out more about the hotel that robbed her of her sleep that night. To her surprise, she finds out that the hotel that had been marketed as a spa and resort had been a rape camp where more than 200 women were raped and  killedduring the war. She is so disturbed by what she finds that she writes to the person who wrote the guide, an American who had been living in Bosnia since 1992.

For Those Who Can Tell No Tales is transfixing without the need to show violent scenes. Jasmila Zbanic makes us feel some of the pain and the sadness of these women that are no longer with us. She reminds us that we should never forget their stories and that It’s our duty to tell their tales.

Karolina Abbas