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At The Movies

`Sarajevo' dramatizes life
of war correspondent.

NOT GOOD WITH ANY OTHER OFFER • EXPIRES JANUARY 15, 1998

SANDRA KREISWIRTH
Special to The Jewish News

LUNCH Monday-Friday
DINNER Monday-Sunday

ournalist Michael Nicholson
is no stranger to war. One of
the world's most respected
foreign correspondents, the
television newsman from Britain's
ITN has covered 15 incidents of man's
inhumane way of settling grievances.
The Bosnian War was his most recent
foray. And it changed his life in a way
he never expected.
It's all laid out in a new film open-
ing today. Director Michael
Winterbottom's Welcome to Sarajevo is
the first English-language film about
the war and the first to be filmed in
the war-torn city since the hostilities
ended.
Based on Nicholson's book
Natasha's Story, adapted by Frank
Cottrell Boyce, the film is the true
story of not only the savagery of war
and the way it is covered by interna-
tional correspondents, but, more per-
sonally, of Nicholson's attempts to
smuggle a 9-year-old Muslim girl out
of the country.
A natty looking Brit, Nicholson
stakes out a corner in the lounge of a
Los Angeles hotel and orders a cup of
tea with specific instructions to pour
the boiling water over the tea before
bringing it to the table. But it doesn't
happen. "You can send men to the
moon," he smiles, "but you can't make
a decent cup of tea."
Nicholson, 60, has been a television
correspondent for 30 years. He's
broadcast from wars in Vietnam,
Nigeria/Biafra, Ulster, Laos, Beirut,
Israel and Mozambique/Angola. He's
written four novels and three nonfic-
tion books, including A Measure of
Danger: Memoirs of a British War
Correspondent. And now Miramax has
published the American edition of
Natasha's Story.
Nicholson admits he's more than
pleased with the film, that everyone
got things "spot on." He says he was
surprised at how accurate his on-
screen character parallels him. "I'm

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•

Sandra Kreiswirth writes for Copley
News Service.

just like Henderson in the movie;
petty, uptight, acerbic and uncoopera-
tive. Plus they squeezed four years in
Sarajevo into an hour, 40. And, they
did a magnificent job."
The events that led to Nicholson
meeting Natasha (called Emira in the
film) went this way. He was appearing
on British television nightly saying,
"We need to evacuate the children."
"It all started on a Monday when
there was big mortar explosion, and
we rushed to the hospital where all the
kids were dying and smashed to
smithereens. Then the surgeon said to
the camera in a very dramatic
sequence, 'Look at these. Look at
these. These are the innocent ones.
Save the children. Tell your people to
save the children.' It had quite an
impact."
While Nicholson was pleading his
case, American C-130s were flying in
full and leaving empty. "I knew there
were plenty of families in Europe and
America who would take a kid on for
the duration of the war and then send
them back when the war was over."
He knew it, because it happened to
him as a child during World War II.
"I was in the London Blitz, and we
used to spend a lot of our time under-
ground in the shelters while the
Luftwaffe was blowing the hell out of
us. So I was evacuated. My govern-
ment sent me, and hundreds of thou-
sands like me, into the countryside.
We were put on trains with a little
label around our neck, and off we
went. Off we went. They saved our
lives."
But the Bosnian government was
not so humane. Neither was the
United Nations nor the local charities.
"They all said no," says Nicholson. So
the night after seeing the maimed chil-
dren at the hospital, he wrote in his
diary, "When I leave Sarajevo, I shall
take a child with me."
"And," he says, "it happened to be
Natasha."
The film details (with some devia-
tion) the escape. And while Nicholson
says he doesn't think Natasha grasped
the risks, she inherently understood it
was necessary to act out a charade on
the bus that was carrying other chil-

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