Film: The 14th-Worst Spot

FILM The 14th-Worst Spot JOHN SIMON ICHAEL Winterbottom’s Wel- Cottrell Boyce, have considerably | \ / come to Sarajevo is a scary and moving film that may also be great. It is loosely based on Natasha’s Story, the account by the British journal- ist Michael Nicholson of his adoption of a nine-year-old Bosnian youngster. Winterbottom and his scenarist, Frank widened the focus—both factual and fic- tional—into a broad canvas of Sarajevo in 1992 and beyond, as the city gallant- ly clutches at normality under steady bombardment and sniper fire. It was Mr. Simon is NR’s film critic. DEGEMBER 22, 1997-7 NATIONAL. REVIEW

filmed in Sarajevo right after the peace treaty of 1996, when the freshly extin- guished rampage was still smoldering.

JS

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John Simon

FILM The 14th-Worst Spot JOHN SIMON ICHAEL Winterbottom’s Wel- Cottrell Boyce, have considerably | \ / come to Sarajevo is a scary and moving film that may also be great. It is loosely based on Natasha’s Story, the account by the British journal- ist Michael Nicholson of his adoption of a nine-year-old Bosnian youngster. Winterbottom and his scenarist, Frank widened the focus—both factual and fic- tional—into a broad canvas of Sarajevo in 1992 and beyond, as the city gallant- ly clutches at normality under steady bombardment and sniper fire. It was Mr. Simon is NR’s film critic. DEGEMBER 22, 1997-7 NATIONAL. REVIEW

filmed in Sarajevo right after the peace treaty of 1996, when the freshly extin- guished rampage was still smoldering.