 I had a movie show in the afternoon on a given Tuesday with my co-host, George Cason. And we're talking today about a movie called The Ordinary Man and the Ordinary Man. And it appealed to both of us. And it is a very interesting story of a war criminal. And we're gonna explore today why we would make a movie like that. Why would we celebrate a war criminal? Why the producer and director did that? Why the actors did that? And what they hoped to achieve and what they did achieve in making this very interesting movie about an ordinary man. George, why is it called an ordinary man? That's a very odd title for a war criminal. Because it shows Ratko Malatik in his life other than the general. I mean, it depicts him in hiding, right? And he's basically an ordinary serve, you know? I mean, his feelings that made him become someone who massacred, but those feelings are all the Serbs feel that way. So I think that's why they said an ordinary man. And also they're showing him in his, there's different places that he's living and showing him as just an ordinary man, you know? That he's in some ways, he's no different than any other Serb or any other human being, you know? Except for the fact that he was a general who ordered the massacre of, I think, 8,000 Bosnian Serb men, you know? So I mean, Bosnian Muslim men. So that's probably it. Because the movie shows him in just like an ordinary man, like anybody else would be living day to day with cooking and, you know, in his abode. That's probably it. Well, you know, it's interesting because you can judge not only a talk show, but a movie. You can judge everything by how it opens. And this opens in really a really interesting way. I mean, there are things that happen in the very beginning of this movie that draw you in magnetically. Gee whiz. And you're right. I think it portrays an ordinary man who lives in the city of Belgrade and who is, I guess, this is recent. This is within the last 10 years or so, this happens. It's hard to say it's all accurate. Some of it is dramatized, but there you have it. He's a war criminal. And little things pop out. You don't realize right away that he's a war criminal. You don't realize right away that he's a general. You don't realize right away that he is surrounded by loyalists who still believe in him, even though he's been a fugitive for years and years. You don't see him as pretty ordinary, maybe a little gruff, you know? But you don't catch the fact that he's a mean, genocidal man who has done incredible things. I mean, really unforgivable things. And so little by little, I like literature and movies that do this. Little by little, these little pieces come out. You have to watch it carefully because they're spooled out at you one by one. For example, the piece that he's known. He's hiding, quote, in plain sight. They all know who he is, right down to the guy in the newsstand and the waiter in the restaurant. They all know who he is and that he's a fugitive. And that the authorities, including, you know, the EU and Interpol and the war criminals court in the Hague, part of the United Nations are related to the United Nations, are looking for this guy and they haven't been able to find him. And all these people know him and they're essentially protecting him and you begin to get the feeling about this after a while in the movie. So he starts out as ordinary, but little by little in the first five, 10 minutes of the movie, you begin to get the message. This is an extraordinary man, not necessarily good. But the thing, the key thing to me is I know the history going back many decades and his feelings were no different than any other serve, you know, the hatred that they had for the Muslims, the Bosnian Muslims who were connected with the Turkish overlords from the past. So in that way, an ordinary man, what he did was extraordinary and he massacred all these people, but his feelings were no different than any almost every serve. So that's another factor in that. So that sneaks in also. He tells you on a number of occasions that he sees himself as a patriot, working for the country, working for the people of the country. And I suppose that's why there's so many people out there protecting him as a fugitive. They agreed, they thought he was a patriot, an honorable and in fact doing work for the preservation of the culture, which is all screwed up, but that's what he thought. That's his perception. And as you said, he was being protected by other Serbs who felt that he was to be hidden, you know, but he was, as you said, he's right inside. Everybody knows who he is the minute they see his face. And then it's somewhere in there, he says that they were telling him to go get plastic surgery so he could change his look. But he said, no, I don't, he said, one time he tells the so-called maid who was really an agent of Serbian agent that, you know, I'm gonna, I can stay this way. No one's gonna get me because he knew he was being protected by all his people, you know, in Serbia. So, you know, not to get back to the history, but you have to do some study on the history of Serbia and the Balkans to understand the background of why they protected them and why they felt the way they did. Yeah. I remember one saying he's walking by a mural, you know, a painted mural, you know, a graffiti mural on the street. Now, these people around, and he's walking right by it. And it's a mural of him. I don't know if you've noticed that, you know, it's a mural of him, it's his face. He's walking right by his own face. Yes. And he says, you know, they may catch me, but I, you know, be on my terms or words to that effect. He had a whole credo on how to deal with both sides of equation. One side, the people who were trying to catch him and the other side, the people who were, you know, helping him as a fugitive. He was right in the middle of things somehow. And he lived, you know, at least according to this movie, out in the open like that. On the other hand, the group that wanted to protect him went to great lengths to protect him. To them, he was a national hero, how perverse that was. But let's, you know, and they moved him. They moved him from apartment to apartment every six months or so that nobody could get a beat on where he was. And they gave him money every morning in a newspaper, a newspaper with articles cut out of it. Reminds me of John Foster Dulles in the 50s. They didn't want him to know certain things. I guess those were the things about how the EU was chasing him, about how, you know, he was an enemy of the EU and of, you know, civil society in Europe. They cut the newspaper. But they gave him a newspaper, they gave him money. They gave him a handsome allowance every day. So, you know, the sky had a real following, although he didn't like the following. He made fun of the following. He criticized the following. He called them names while they were saving his life. It's very odd person, a perverse personality. But let's talk about the woman for a minute. You called her an agent. She presented as a maid. When they moved him to a certain apartment, she knocked on the door. She said, I'm here as the maid and I've been hired to, you know, do maid service for you. And he says to her, well, I guess you belong to me, but then I belong to you too. And they started this relationship. Now, he's, you know, in his 70s and she's in her 20s, I think they said she was like 22 or 25 or something. And now you have a relationship and the relationship was extraordinary. The actress was extraordinary. And there's this great show stopper scene when he makes her strip to make sure that she's not carrying weapons. Can you describe that for our audience? And remember, this is a family show, George. Basically, she purportedly came to that apartment for the former resident of Mrs. Barakowicz or something like that. But in reality, she was an agent. But you don't learn that until much later in the film that she's an agent. So he says to her strip, now if he says to her, take your summer, your clothes off and then she's still wearing a bra and panties and he wants her to go into the shower so he can tell that she's not, you know, nothing hidden in her bra or her panties. But, and then she comes out and all stark naked, you know? Of course, there's other orifices that she could have kept a weapon in but they don't talk about that, you know? So, but then she comes out stark naked and that's right at the beginning of the film and that's sort of shocking, you know, to see, you know, frontal nudity like that. But that's what he did to just make sure she wasn't, you know, out to get him or something like that or one of the people trying, but so then they start- It's a showstop. When you see this happening, you know, you can't understand what's going on. It's not obvious that he's having her strip so he could protect himself from hidden weapons. He just commands her like a general would, you know, to do these things. And what's interesting, you begin to get a handle on where she's coming from as a character. She does it without complaint. She's not, she's got a flat, flat effect face. She's not saying anything. She's not necessarily objecting. She just does it. And you begin to wonder, who is this woman? Why is she there? Why is she conducting herself that way? She doesn't seem like a maid. She's very pretty, by the way. And P.S., she's Icelandic. Did you get that part? Yes, she's Icelandic. She's an Icelandic actress from, what's that city in Iceland, Reykjavík? Reykjavík, yeah. And she, and they brought her in, I suppose. She's supposed to be from Belgrade. She's supposed to be a local girl. She pretends and she has a kind of persona lined up, you know, the group that brought her in as an agent gave her a persona. She's essentially a spy on him. But it's very interesting how you find later, I mean, outside the movie, that she's Icelandic. Extraordinary, yeah, go ahead. Her whole family is theatrical. Her mother, her father, her grandfather was a theatrical producer in Iceland. So she's got this long history in her family, but she played the role to a T. And like you said, you're wondering why is she a seeding to this? If she was just a young maid coming to Mrs. Borowitz's flat, she would have, he was very arrogant to 16 years, he was able to stay in hiding because he was getting help. But I mean, he's very arrogant. He's like a general, you know, doesn't look, Ben Kingsley doesn't look anything like melodic, but he played the role really well. And Hera Hilmar is the actress that plays Tanya, the maid, so-called maid. So you start to wonder, why is she acting the way she, anybody else would just walk out, you know, or whatever, but she stays, so you know there's something going on. Well, there's one scene where she does walk out. In fact, he yells at her for some silly thing and he says, get out of my sight and she walks out. But not too much later, hours, not days, she comes back. And she brings him food and the like and you know, you're wondering, why didn't she come back? Why'd she come back to a guy who abused her like that? And you find out later why. But he believes in his arrogance that she came back because of what he said early on, you belong to me and I belong to you. And they have a relationship that required her to come back. Yeah, exactly because she was an agent of the Serbian agent, you know, to watch over him, to keep him, reportedly to keep him off the streets so that he doesn't get revealed, you know, because he's so arrogant, he just walks, goes to the new stand, blah, blah, blah, goes to the shop, you know, he's not really in hiding but luckily, I mean, for him, he's got all these other Serbs that are supporting him, you know, that he can stay in hiding for 16 years. The storyline goes on. One of the things that at the end, I don't know if you want me to bring it in, you know, there are things here that are true, it's basically based on a true story. But I mean, there was, I don't know whether there was a maid who was an agent but at the end, she gets shot by his driver but there was never a maid. And in the real story, right before they sent Milatic to the Hague for his trial, they did allow him to go to his daughter's grave, his daughter had 26 years old, had committed suicide because she was bothered by what her father had done, you know, that he had massacred all these people but there was no reason to kill off the Tanya, the maid or the agent, right? But they did that in the movie maybe to make people. We don't know. We don't really know his biography. We don't know his life story. Well, I suspect that there was something that happened that gave the silverman was his name who produced and directed this movie. But one thing is you make it sound, we should give more attention to the shooting. Yeah, that's... He is determined to go see the grave of his dead wife, daughter in this little town. And they break away, in fact, they steal the car of the driver, Milo is the driver. They steal the car and he asks the maid, Tanya, to drive him out into the country and they go to this little town where people seem to know who he is because that's where he came from, that was his town. And they don't particularly like him either. And he goes to the cemetery, but he doesn't, she prevails on him not to get out of the car, it's too dangerous. And he wants to drop some sort of iconic scarf, remember, a multicolored scarf that he keeps in a kind of altar in his apartment. And he brings it with him that day and the idea is to deliver it to his daughter's grave. She says, I will go and deliver this. It's only like, maybe 100 yards away, less 50 yards away. She delivers the scarf and she drops it on the grave, at which point the driver who is part of this organization that is supposed to protect him comes out from beyond a number of people come out from the other side of the cemetery. They've been watching him. They knew what he was gonna do. They knew he was gonna go to that town. They knew he was gonna go to the graveyard there, okay? And they cost her and it's an amazing scene. He says, let me have the gun because they know that she always carries a gun. This is a cherubic, angelic young woman who in the movie, she I'm thinking, she was not even 20, the character in the movie. And she gives him the gun and in a second, in a moment without hesitation, it's brutal. He turns the gun on her and shoots her in the head dead and the fellows come out from behind the gravestones, carry her away, put her in a trunk like she never existed and drive away. And you say, what happened there? What was that all about? Why would they take this cherubic woman who had saved Ratko's life a number of times who had protected him and fed him and entertained him and acted as a daughter? Maybe there's the connection there to him over a period of time. And why would they just completely execute her given the fact that A, she was an agent of theirs and B, she was for the most part taking care of him the way they wanted. Why did they shoot her like that? Because I did some research on this whole history of melodic, right? And that's whole scene, I don't believe there's any reality to it. I think that was just done for interest, to get the audience- Maybe like the strip scene. The strip scene didn't bother me that much at all. I mean, she was an attractive woman, but the shooting, the killing of her at the end, I mean, as you said, what was the reason that she was maybe for stealing the car? Maybe Milo, the driver was upset that she stole his car, but he would know that how powerful the general is. I mean, the general pretty much, she did anything he wanted. I mean, he was such a powerful, strong personality, you know? I mean, it's- But she controlled him. Yes, she did anything he wanted. He would command her to do things and she would do them. And then he would insult her and abuse her and all that, but on the critical things to save him, to save him from being identified, to save him from being attacked or killed. And there were those scenes. She interceded. She overtook his will. She was not going to simply agree. She protected him and she carried a gun with her for that purpose. She was always out there to protect him. And so it's not just a matter of her being docile. She was a killer at the same time. She was an agent, like an FBI agent. I mean, she was trained. I mean, to maybe, you know, when she took him to the cemetery, that was outside of the purview of what she was supposed to do. But I mean, you know, when an agent does something like that, knowing the general, how powerful he is, it's just incomprehensible that they would, that she would be shot in the head, you know, at the end, you know, but... I don't think it was just to excite us. I don't think it was just to, you know, have a sit forward in our seats watching the movie. I think they were trying to tell us something. And I think, see if you agree, they were trying to tell us that these guys, both sides, were very brutal people. And life didn't mean much to them. I mean, think about it, these are the people who supported a genocide. These are the people who killed thousands of people for no good reason. And so, should it be a surprise that they killed their own agent so brutally, so instantaneously, like that execution style, they were murderous. And I think there's a message, they, you know, the producers, directors were sending us a message. These people are different. They're not ordinary at all. They're murderous. And they do this kind of stuff. I guess that was the point that was being made, even though there was, I don't think the scene was true of what I read and my research, but I think that what you said is exactly it, that just to show how brutal these guys are, that they would kill their own agent. And she followed her mission to a T, except for that thing of taking him to the cemetery. But, you know, and she figured she could do it under the QT, you know, quietly so that nobody would recognize him, you know, or he wouldn't be taken. But maybe that was going out of her duty so they shot her for that. She broke the rules. She broke the rules. She took Milo's car. She stole Milo's car and she, you know, essentially rejected their control of her and did something that was completely foreboding to take her, to take him out into this small town, his birth town, and expose him that way. So I think, you know, they were saying, you can't break the rules like that. You remember that old lady at that little eating place? How at the end, she, I mean, she took her hand and rubbed it on his neck. So she liked him, you know? She, I mean, she knew who he was. I mean, for maybe she knew him in his childhood and she liked him. So, I mean, getting back to the whole thing, I mean, these were murderers, but I don't, and the fact that he was hidden in plain sight I think that you have to understand the whole history and see why these serves protected this war criminal, this murderer, you know? It was a, it's part of the whole history of the Balkan area. Yeah, right. And they retained their view of things, their genocidal view of things for years and decades after the genocide was over, you know, suggesting that, you know, Belgrade is not at peace even now. This is a fairly recent story about his capture and his trial. This happened only a few years ago, within the last five years, I think. And what they're telling us is that Belgrade is still in this kind of tension. And there were two sides and they both are genocidal in their own way. I mean, they were killing their own neighbors. It was horrible if this should happen. That's a whole historical story. But I wanted to ask you, you know, you mentioned before you alluded to her quality as an actress. And to me, she was absolutely captivating and mysterious. And the trouble about it was that she was, she looked like she was 17 or 18 years old, completely angelic face and the way she moved. She was a teenager for God's sake. And what kind of acting is that? Because a teenager who is capable of killing people, a teenager who is dedicated as an agent, now carries a gun around, protects his life with her life. What an extraordinary role that is. And you said she was really, really good. She played it really well. And it was again, that kind of thing where you see her at one level and these little things roll out at you and you begin to realize that it's not that level at all. She's really different than the way she presents. But him, what an actor. This man is one of the most polished actors in the world. Today, everything he's done has been good. But I tell you, I saw the Gandhi movie. He was in Schindler's List. He was remarkable in that and so many other movies. But this one was a study that he excelled in beyond words. It was an extraordinary performance. Don't you think? Oh, he was just phenomenal. But I mean, knowing his other roles, how well he's, what a great actor he is, par excellence, I really wasn't surprised by his performance. I mean, he's that good. So it was no different than his other roles. But she played her role very well. And as you said, this angelic face and she's a Serbian agent, you know, and you would never think seeing her on the street and she carries a gun that she was an agent. But, you know, and not to get back again, learn the history and this all will become very clear. I mean, Yugoslav, you broke up, right? And all the different elements, the Muslims and the Christians and in the former Soviet Union, the same thing, Christian versus Muslim, you're dealing with the same situation there. So, you know, it's just nothing, nothing really that amazing, you know, to understand what, knowing the history, you'll understand. I'll leave it at that. Well, I mean, I just want one point on that, on that specific phenomenon. Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia with an iron hand, told those people, both sides, that they're not gonna do violence to each other. It's not permitted and he will punish them, you know, anyone who engages in this kind of cultural war. And he succeeded, Yugoslavia under his thumb. He was an autocrat, communist, what have you. And probably, you know, the most effective autocrat of his time in that area, famous even. He put a blanket on that kind of strife. So he dies. As you said, Yugoslavia virtually comes apart and these animosities that had existed under the hood, you know, hundreds of years ago that have been dampened by the likes of Tito, all of a sudden popped up again. So it's really, and it's instructive in our time, there was a divisiveness, a religious divisiveness, whatever that existed, you know, hundreds of years before that his death revealed them. His death opened them up again, exacerbated them to the point of genocide. It's very interesting on the human condition, his life, his death and his aftermath. It's a study all by itself about Yugoslavia and Tito. But I wanted to get to what I think is the core point of the movie, George. Why would anybody make a movie about a war criminal, guilty, unquestionably guilty? I mean, they found him guilty. He's in jail now for a life term. That's what the tribunal found not too long ago after they caught him. But why make a movie about a guy who was sort of, you know, you would say he's the picture of evil killing all those people indiscriminately for reasons that, you know, are simply elusive. You know, he thought it was nationalism. That's not, you can't. That genocide never is justified, never, ever, ever, ever. But he thought it was justified. So why then would anybody go out, you know, somebody from the country or somebody from outside the country and celebrate his life by making a biographical or maybe a partially biographical movie about him and portraying him with a great actor? What was the point? And this is the biggest point of our review today, George. What was the point of making a movie about a war criminal? It's to show that he was not alone in his feelings, only in his actions and that in some ways he was just an ordinary, served man who had been a general and who went and did this horrible massacre. And not really to celebrate his life, but to show him as, you know, that he's, in some ways he's just, you know, just like a regular ordinary man and to show him in his cooking and washing and living in his flat. I think that's what the whole thing was about. And they weren't really celebrating him. They were just showing him as an ordinary man that it's really not that different. I mean, there's, you go back and you're at Al Hitler and in my family's case, Talat Pasha and all of these people that order these, these genocides that, you know, you look, you go into their boat and they're just living a normal life eating and, you know, go into their bathroom and whatever. I think that's what they were trying to show that it doesn't take much to jump from your daily data existence to doing something that bad. If, if nationally you have the country behind you. I think that was the point. You agree or no. Well, yeah, maybe I would turn it a little bit differently. I mean, number one is that he, he never sought forgiveness. He never admitted guilt. He never said he was sorry. He carried it as a badge of honor what he had done. They're quite remarkable. But as, as I mean, unforgivable in many ways. He's a monster. I think I was a monster. Right till the end of the movie until today, where he's in jail. He probably never admitted he was wrong about anything. But there's the ordinary man title. And what you was saying, I take it this way. Even monsters are men. Even monsters have vulnerabilities. Even monsters have needs, personal needs. Needs for relationships. Like with the honey of the maid. Needs to live an ordinary life. So what I think the movie was trying to do is show you that even a general responsible directly responsible for genocides. He became an ordinary Schmo. And with vulnerabilities and weaknesses and. Personal needs. And, and it humanized him. It did it humanized him. He became human, even though he never admitted he was wrong, even though he continued to, you know, defend his monstrous, his monstrous conduct. And that makes it, you know, we, there's a common denominator there. Even mad men are men. Couldn't agree with you more. Well, I was certainly finding some interesting movies, George. These are, when you say educational in a very profound way. I'm not sure I would have liked this as much. If Ben Kingsley hadn't been starring in it. I mean, I don't think I would have liked it as much if the, the direction had been lesser. And if the historical context had been a lesser. But I liked it a lot because it's some level. And I think it was what I was just saying. I learned a lot about the human condition. I learned about what happened in, you know, in, in Serbia. And, and, and the educational factor there. And the presentation of it. By the people who made this movie was really for me, I told you. Magnetic experience. I felt that I knew a lot more about what happened in, in the soft underbelly than I knew before. So we're on a, we're on a roll here, George. We've discussed some really important movies. Movies that teach you movies that show you movies that expand your consciousness and your awareness of the world in a, in a world that is, you know, more and more interdependent now. And, and, and, you know, in a left-handed way, it's a benefit of COVID because we have these movies available to us. And the filmmakers are making them left and right. And the filmmakers are really inspired. When they make movies like this one or a Saru Dam or some of the others back to pig, if you remember. All these are really good movies. So what do you want to do next? You made some suggestions, Jay. What was the next one? Human flows. Yeah, human flow by Ai Weiwei, the Chinese dissident. And then, yeah. But, and then you said letter from muscle. Letters from a Sanjia is another one. So you and I will, we'll figure out which one to do. Letters from a Sanjia is more personal. Human flow is really at the, at the 50,000 foot level. And it's much more documentary. Well, they're both documentary. What am I saying? They're both completely documentary, completely true. They're true movies. They're both worth covering. We should cover them both. We'll, we'll discuss this and decide which one to go to do first. Yeah, on two weeks. We'll take it from there. Thank you, George. George Kason here on the movie show and tank tech. Very valuable discussion, as always. Thank you, Jay.