DVD REVIEW: Scream For Me Sarajevo
Music brings people together in a way other social constructs could only dream of. Whether it’s forming a kinship over a specific album, bonding about a mutual love for a particular music podcast or even acknowledging a passer-by in the street who happens to be wearing the same band t-shirt. These elements that help explain why people are so fiercely loyal to the tunes they pump into their ears on a regular basis. Live shows are potentially even more vital, because for a few hours the venue becomes a haven of positivity and happiness, an impenetrable shield against the outside world where people forget about their issues and troubles and enjoy life for what it is. In 1994, one such event not only accomplished this but did so against significant odds, a triumph against conflict, unrest and the terror that comes with it. Today, Scream for Me Sarajevo is released via Eagle Vision, a documentary about that very show and the stories surrounding it.
It’s worth giving a little historical context here: at the time, the city of Sarajevo was in the middle of the longest siege of a capital city in the history of modern warfare, assaulted day and night by a military force of Bosnian Serbs, known as the Army of Republika Srpska. Devastation and bloodshed was paramount, yet the tenacity of the Sarajevo people remained strong and they managed to overcome the regular blackouts and loss of lives to continue moving forward. In 1994, a UN ambassador and British major named Martin Morris came up with the idea of a concert in the city itself. The headline act in mind? Bruce Dickinson, at that point touring second solo album Balls to Picasso and still half a decade away from his triumphant return to the IRON MAIDEN fold.
What Scream for Me Sarajevo most definitely isn’t is a concert film; this is an insightful, harrowing and absorbing journey through the eyes of the people who witnessed it. Director Tarik Hodžić has expertly combined real-life accounts with footage from the time and delivered a documentary that will unsettle and uplift in equal measures. The footage of children being fired at with bullets and clinging onto moving tanks to avoid death is contrasted with the elation described by the citizens when they found out who was coming to play their city and the concert in question; indeed, as one fan puts it, “For those few hours, there was no war for me”. The recollections of the band being smuggled through Bosnia in bright yellow trucks will amuse and captivate in equal measures, while the emotions displayed will pull on even the hardiest of heartstrings, especially when Bruce returns to Sarajevo twenty-one years later and a fan who couldn’t make the concert finally meets his hero; there’s two decades of longing released in the space of about ten seconds.
As Bruce himself puts it during the film, ‘Life without risk is not worth living’ and Scream for Me Sarajevo is the epitome of this outlook to the ninth degree; every single person involved in the gig chanced life and limb to make it happen and, as the story unfolds, it’s impossible not to be completely sucked in alongside. Well worth a watch.
Rating: 9/10
Scream for Me Sarajevo is out now via Eagle Vision.
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