Two Hours from London is a brilliant, passionate polemic about the war in the former Yugoslavia. The final film by Jill Craigie, it outlines the role played by Serbian nationalism in Yugoslavia's break-up, and how the opportunism of Serbia's president Slobodan Milosevic led to the worst genocide in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
When Two Hours from London was made in the mid-1990s, the prevalent view in the west, and certainly among the media and political class in the UK, was that the wars in the former Yugoslavia were the result of ancient ethnic hatreds. What the film shows is that the predominant cause of the conflict was the drive for 'Greater Serbia'. Far from being a civil war, the war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina was an invasion by Serbia, which wanted to carve up large parts of Bosnia's territory for itself.
If Two Hours from London has a fault, it is that it is too lenient on Croatia and its then president Franjo Tudjman. Tudjman's own drive for 'Greater Croatia' was also the cause of great bloodshed, including the Muslim-Croat war of 1993-4 - the one part of the Bosnian conflict that could justifiably be described as a civil war. But on almost every other count, Jill Craigie's film is a superb piece of documentary.
Its views may have been controversial at the time of its release, but they are now widely accepted - not least by the United Nations, which now views the Bosnian war as an international rather than a civil conflict.
When Two Hours from London was made in the mid-1990s, the prevalent view in the west, and certainly among the media and political class in the UK, was that the wars in the former Yugoslavia were the result of ancient ethnic hatreds. What the film shows is that the predominant cause of the conflict was the drive for 'Greater Serbia'. Far from being a civil war, the war in the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina was an invasion by Serbia, which wanted to carve up large parts of Bosnia's territory for itself.
If Two Hours from London has a fault, it is that it is too lenient on Croatia and its then president Franjo Tudjman. Tudjman's own drive for 'Greater Croatia' was also the cause of great bloodshed, including the Muslim-Croat war of 1993-4 - the one part of the Bosnian conflict that could justifiably be described as a civil war. But on almost every other count, Jill Craigie's film is a superb piece of documentary.
Its views may have been controversial at the time of its release, but they are now widely accepted - not least by the United Nations, which now views the Bosnian war as an international rather than a civil conflict.
