The Whistleblower (Larysa Kondracki, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Addie Rosales. Viewed at The 2011 Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Rachel Weisz gives a very heavy performance, which made the movie what it was, as she takes on the true role of Kathy Bolvac in Larysa Kondracki’s raw but powerful film The Whistleblower. This film gives an up close, brutal and personal outlook on the violent ways of sex trafficking during post-war in Bosnia and discovering more in-depth just how corrupt the UN is, along with people she though she knew, and the ugly and horrifying truth of what they’re capable of doing. The filmography of this movie is up close, similar to a documentary rather than a movie, which was a brilliant way to film this, serious and disturbing matter of what the film is based on. There are scenes in the movie that are sickening to watch and will make your stomach turn, but leaves you with a glimpse at how disgusting these women get treated and what prevents them from testifying against any of the men who take part in sex trafficking, pure fear.

Kathy (Weisz) left her job as a Nebraska Cop to become a peace maker in Bosnia in order to earn and save enough money in order to keep better contact with her daughter, who lives in another state under the custody of her ex-husband. Through Kathy’s determination and drive, she quickly moves up in ranks, thanks to her former training as a police officer, and eventually scores herself a position of being in charge of the Gender Office. These duties include being in charge of investigating sexual assault, domestic abuse and sex trafficking. While most officers seem to be taken over by corruption of the UN and struggling country, and only interested in getting paid as well as taking part in the sex trade, Kathy is determined to put an end to these acts and to convince the young women that have been taken that they have other options and they should and can testify against the men responsible, by promising them protection of her dedication and compassion towards these victims.

Two characters Weisz comes across in the movie are two Ukrainian girls that were adventuring to Bosnia, and through their travels got picked up and forced into the sexual slavery that many other girls were also forced upon. Raya was one of the girls that Kathy became very found and protective of, maybe due to the longing for her own daughter, and made it her main job and concern to save Raya from slavery and coasted her into testifying against her kidnappers, which she eventually agreed to do. Even with the help of Kathy, this is a very risky thing to do, because they have no way of telling who they can trust, and the risk of the kidnappers finding them and killing them, which is exactly what happens to Raya after being kidnapped again and used to make an example of to the other slaves, which only increased their fear that was already present and made it impossible to get any of those girls to testify. Once discovering Raya’s death only left Kathy even more enraged and determined to put an end to sex-trafficking and started to collect data and evidence to testify against UN employees that have been taken over by the corruption and to finally put an end to these inhuman actions, which is finally accomplished in 2000, where she publicly blows the whistle and exposes the UN and US State Department cover-up of sex-trafficking taking place in Bosnia.