REVIEW: The Forgiveness of Blood Will Make You Care About Albanian Blood Feuds ? Really

Maybe you?re the kind of person who wakes up in the morning and says, ?What can I learn today about the psychological effects of blood feuds in contemporary Albania?? But I doubt it. Who even thinks about these things, or cares about them? The strange miracle of Joshua Marston?s modest, well-constructed drama The Forgiveness of Blood — which really is about blood feuds in contemporary Albania — is that once you?ve watched it, you might find that you actually do care. It?s the kind of movie that makes the world feel like a smaller place, suggesting that the similarities connecting us across continents and cultures are more resonant than the things that divide us.

The Forgiveness of Blood is set in northern Albania — it was also filmed there, using local, nonprofessional actors. Eighteen-year-old Nik (Tristan Halilaj) is a senior in high school, with his eye on the prettiest classmate and ambitions to open his own Internet café. But one day his father, Mark (Refet Abazi), becomes involved in a land dispute: Mark makes a living for himself and his family by delivering bread to local homes and businesses — his mode of transport is a horse-drawn cart — and he habitually takes a shortcut across land that used to belong to his grandfather. The current owners take umbrage, and an altercation breaks out in which one of them is stabbed to death; implicated in the murder, Mark immediately goes into hiding. But according to codes of law that have been in place for centuries, the aggrieved family is entitled to take the life of a male from the aggressor?s family. Nik is forced into a kind of house arrest, along with his younger brother and two sisters. But because the female members of the household aren?t in…

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