The Weight of Chains
The Weight of Chains
| 17 December 2010 (USA)
The Weight of Chains Trailers

The Weight of Chains is a Canadian documentary film that takes a critical look at the role that the US, NATO and the EU played in the tragic breakup of a once peaceful and prosperous European state - Yugoslavia. The film, bursting with rare stock footage never before seen by Western audiences, is a creative first-hand look at why the West intervened in the Yugoslav conflict, with an impressive roster of interviews with academics, diplomats, media personalities and ordinary citizens of the former Yugoslav republics. This film also presents positive stories from the Yugoslav wars - people helping each other regardless of their ethnic background, stories of bravery and self-sacrifice.

Reviews
niziris

No wonder it spark such strong reactions! No one like their bubble to be burst but this movie is full with facts, US official giving information etc. Some say it is biased but the irony is THAT IS NOT. Propaganda on Yugoslavia war was so against the Serbs, that when you see something like this it just SHOCK YOU. Very similar to "Srebrenica town betrayed" a Norwegian documentary film directed by Ola Flyum and David Hebditch."You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."Brilliant work!

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Mike Lee

Firstly when I found this title on IMDb, I was delighted that someone really took some time to study this part of the history (and the world) and that all of us can say that this is really what happened. I really believed in this as I found that origin of film is Canada and this director is rather young so he could have something good. Also I always use IMDb-s rates for good movies/series/documentaries and when I saw rate of 8,2 I thought that this must be excellent. Why am I writing this? Because I am obligated for all those who lives, lived in Balkan peninsula (Yugoslavia) and for all people out of the ex Yugoslavia borders which now are watching this movie and they must think that poor these guys - Serbs. During the whole movie you can see how every thing is against this people and country (Serbs) and that they didn't done anything wrong. Albanians, Bosnians, Croats, Macedonians , Montenegrian, Slovenians all of them are genocide people, all of them has some debt to Serbia from history and only Serbs are heroic, honest and non aggressive. To correct few history facts – First – Kingdom of Yugoslavia between two world wars was a pro Serbs country in which life was awful for all inhabitants including Serbs. Just to remind in this time on 1928. Serbs nationalist Racic shot 5 Croats members of parliament. Secondly – During WW2 Serbia was not occupied by Germany "Reich" control, it was satellite country of Reich under the name of Nediceva Srbija same as Croatian was Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska under Ustase. Serbs also had camp, for Jews, Albanians, Croats, and all other Serbs which were against Nedic, called Banjica and similar. So basically it was the same story as Jasenovac in NDH. Also Chetniks were cold blood killers and cooperator of Nazis, Italian Fascist, Ustase and Nedic regime. Third – To summarize all situation regarding last 30 years in Yugoslavia. Serbs were not peaceful as neither the Croats or Muslim were. As Director says it was all outside game. There is a lot of things which I consider as not true, correct or honest. I don't want to number them all but viewer should be careful watching this video and evaluate facts stated in this documentary.Only thing what is matter is that "small" people suffered and they were moved from their home, raped, prosecuted and eventually killed. This kind of movie should be to calm all sides not to bring the oil on fire. My opinion is that the movie idea was fine but realization end with lot of history revision and lot of wrong facts which are now bringing viewer to the doubt if lot of correct item was also wrong.

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rodiena

This 'documentary' is simply a rehash of long debunked and discredited Serbian nationalist myths.Even anyone unfamiliar with the background of the majority of the film's interviewees - well-known/notorious Serb apologists like Srdja Trifkovic (which is equivalent to interviewing Joseph Goebbels in a documentary about Nazi Germany and taking his opinion seriously), Canadian supporters of the Belgrade interpretation of recent history like James Bissett, Michel Chossudovsky, and a collection of American fellow travellers like Lituchy, Parenti, etc. - would get a fairly clear indication of where the film was coming from if you looked at the list of its backers and read the media coverage quoted at the film's website. There are also pictures of the film's director standing in front of the Clinton statue in Prishtina giving the Serb nationalist three finger salute, which makes one slightly suspicious of his intentions and ability to be impartial.The 'documentry's' nature is clearly signalled by the treatment of Srebrenica. There is a brief acknowledgement that thousands of Bosniaks were killed and ethnically cleansed (the exact number is not specified, despite it being known), but it then goes on to practice the old denialist trick in relation to the Srebrenica massacre, of describing (and exaggerating) the military actions of the Bosnian military commander in the Srebrenica region, Naser Oric – involving attacks on Serb villages around Srebrenica and atrocities against Serb civilians – while neglecting to mention the incomparably larger-scale Serbian offensives that preceded Oric's actions, and to which the latter were a response. It also emphasises the disproven claims of James Corwin that the number of the prisoners executed in the week following the fall of Srebrenica was no more than the number of Serbs killed in the villages surrounding Srebrenica during the entire course of the siege. Corwin's former UN credentials are highlighted without any mention of the content of the findings contained in the report of the UN's own official inquiry into the fall of Srebrenica and its rebuttal of claims concerning Serb deaths, eg at Kravica. Srdja Trifkovic, who was the spokesperson for the Bosnian Serb Presidency, is allowed to make highly contentious assertions unchallenged.The author, the narrator in the film, does not forget to include a few sentences about the supposed 'anti-fascist' struggle of the Chetniks. There is no mention of the Chetnik's collaboration with the Nazis and the Ustashe, nor of their ethnic cleansing and mass murder operations towards non-Serbs in Bosnia and the Sandjak (It is untrue, as apologists for the Chetniks claim, that Chetnik massacres were simply retaliation for prior Ustasha massacres.) The number of people killed at Jasenovac is also exaggerated (700,000 figure is not taken seriously by anyone but Serb nationalists), and there is no mention of the fact that many Croats and Muslims were killed there.Also very telling is what is not mentioned in this 'documentry'. In the film, the rebellion of Serbs in Croatia is treated as a legitimate demand for cultural autonomy; the actual truth of the nature of this secession is bypassed. There is no mention of the ethnic cleansing of 150,000 to 200,000 Croats from Serb-controlled areas of the so called Republika Srpska Krajina in 1991/1992. There is only a very brief mention of the horrific destruction of Vukovar and the bombing of Dubrovnik. The film also disingenuously mentions Operation Storm before any mention of the war in Bosnia and the Srebrenica massacre, even though it occurred afterwards. The number of Serbs killed during the operation is exaggerated (even Serb sources say the number of civilians killed is around 1200, not 2000 as the film states).The 'documentry' spends very little time on Bosnia, but again it's omissions are very telling. There is virtually no mention of any ethnic cleansing of Bosnia by Serb forces. The film also neglects to mention the siege of Sarajevo and Tuzla, all very strange targets if the Serbs just wanted to "control the areas which were inhabited by Serbs" as the director says, seeing as they are Muslim majority cities.The "history lesson" of Kosova is also pathetic. It goes straight from the annexation of Kosova from the Ottoman Empire in 1913 to the persecution of Serbs during WW2 by Albanian fascist collaborators. There is no mention of the ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albananians in the period between WW1 and WW2, which included massacre, colonisation by Serbs and even attempts to deport the Albanian population to Turkey, nor is there any mention that Albania was under fascist (and later Nazi) occupation at the time, and that many Albanians fought against the Nazis. The Albanians are treated in general like a bunch of ungrateful fascists who just want to kill Serbs for no reason. As for the Kosova War 1998-1999,the Serbs campaign of systematic violence against the Kosovar Albanian population is not mentioned at all, in fact the ludicrous assertion that no Kosovars were killed in areas controlled by the Serb security forces is made. The director asserts that the Recak massacre was a hoax, this is untrue. It is true that the Yugoslav and Belarusian (ordered by the Yugoslav government) concluded that those killed were not civilians, but the Finnish investigation included evidence that the victims were unarmed civilians, not soldiers. The team leader, too, described the dead as unarmed civilians, including older men and a woman, who had all been killed at the same time. She stated that the killings were "a crime against humanity." Nothing said or published by any members of the team has contradicted that statement.These are just some of the examples of the propaganda in this so called 'documentry'. If you are looking for how Serb nationalists attempt to spin the war to alleviate their guilt and portray themselves as the victims, this film has uses, but if you are looking for a factual account of the war, avoid like the plague.

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nanajbg

The person that made this movie is either very evil or very uninformed. This is an insult to all the people that survived the war. And they know what a big lie this is! I was there, I was a child and they took my childhood, they took my family members, and now they want to take the truth. I hate no one, and everyone knows in a war is nothing just black or just white, every side had it's wrong doings, but this film isn't saying that. This film is trying to erase the guilt of Serbia and put it on others. For everyone who doesn't know the facts, here is a fact that will make everything much clearer and no one (Croate, Muslim or Serb) can say it's not true: The Serbian army fought on Croatian and Bosnian ground. The war happened in Croatia and Bosnia. Were there Croatian and Bosnian soldiers fighting on Serbian ground? No! Was there war on Serbian ground? No! Nationalism is never good, but truth isn't nationalism, and the truth should not be forgotten. So, don't let us forget! Don't allow them to take the truth and the past from us!

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