When lightning strikes... Review on Shot Through the Heart

One of the stories from my schooldays that I still remember is "The Sniper" by an Irish writer Liam O'Flaherty. In brief, that story was about a place torn due to a civil war and was narrated in terms of incidents that mark a day of one sniper. The sniper is involved in a crossfire with a rival sniper across the street. He manages to out-smart the other sniper in the combat and shoots him down; getting wounded himself in the bargain. Eventually the story ends with him realizing that he has killed his own brother. This is one of those stories which I will never forget. Since this one was read at quite an impressionable age, it had an everlasting impact on me somewhere.

On one of my trips to foreign land, I was flipping tv channels and saw "Shot Through The Heart" movie being screened on HBO. Serendipity, isn't it? As luck would have it, it had just started.

The story is pivoted on lives of 2 Yugoslavian men. Both are ace marksmen and have been best of friends for a long time. They have represented their country's professional shooting team. They and their beloved have spent some of the most cherished moments together. Everything is hunky dory until the ethnic war breaks out. Tragedies after tragedy strike and in these trying moments everything will get tested - be it the resilience of the warring sides claiming their supremacy over the other or be it the strength of their friendship.

Nothing really stands the test of the time(does it?). Soon one of the friends(a Croat) who has a Muslim wife realizes that it is his best friend(a Serbian) who primarily stands between his side and the victory. Will he give in to pressures of saving his community and eliminate his friend? And mind you, it is not only he who realizes the challenge; his Serbian friend also has to go through the mental agony of making some tough decisions.

What would you and I do if we were pitted in a situation such as this? What would you do when you have me, your best friend, within your shooting range? You know very well it is me who stands between you and anything that you possibly want to achieve(or you think you will achieve after your side wins). Will you not shoot me down and be done with it? Or will the scenes from our beautiful past flutter around and make you weak? You don't want to love me, but then you still do. You don't want to bleed me, but then you have to.

In no other situation and under no other circumstances, would probably killing your friend be accepted but be expected and be rewarded.

What if all talks with me prove futile? What can be worse than knowing that I also am adamantly going to fight it till the very end? And what if you are still not able to click your trigger? Will I have let go of an opportunity such as this one if you were on the receiving end? You cannot answer and in those times the more doubts you have the more you run the risk of getting shot yourself - **shot through the heart!

The photography really brings to life the horrors on the streets of Sarajevo. None of the actors may be the "talk-of-the-town" kinds, or be ever featured in any glossy magazines, but have done their parts exceptionally well. The story brings to life the horrors of such ethnic cleansing acts through some riveting performances.  Watch the movie and you will face all the questions that I raise below.

Is there a happy ending possible? Do the warring sides realize that a victory such as this is akin to a Pyrrhic victory?

In this ethnic storm that is brewing, how long will you or I avoid being thunderstruck? The lightning will strike and burn with it everything that you and I have ever stood for, everything that you and I have ever built.

Are you and I not fighting for a cause, which we ourselves have forgotten long ago? Victory - is that it? Who is really victorious? Or is it that the pursuit of victory tore us? Yes the bitter truth is that no relationship, or rather nothing can ever stand the test of time.

What have you or I really achieved?