MAUS. A Tangible Atmosphere of Unrelenting Tension

From the very first minutes of Maus, a Spanish film by Yayo Herrero, one can sense an underlying tension, the source of which is initially difficult to pinpoint. In part, this stems from the film’s distinctive camerawork, which at times “loses” a character only to reintroduce them into the frame in such a way that the sense of place feels unstable, with different spatial planes overlapping. This is a virtuoso technique—one that not only instills a feeling of uncertainty before we even know where the story is headed, but also mirrors the narrative itself, which unfolds at the intersection of drama, war cinema, and horror.

We meet the main characters, 30-year-olds Alex and Selma, when their car breaks down on a forest road in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

He—a German optimist—wants to walk to the nearest village to get help. She—a Bosnian Muslim—is visibly uneasy, not only because there might still be landmines hidden in the woods, remnants of war. Her opening prayer sets a tone of caution, even though silence and calm dominate the screen. You think the forest in Bosnia is like a park in Berlin,” she tells Alex when he begins to treat their forced stop as a simple problem to solve.

But Selma soon sees something in the mist—something her boyfriend and the viewers initially do not. Soon, two men appear on the horizon, seemingly offering help, but Selma starts to flee. When a sudden mine explosion stuns her, one of the men throws himself on her and rapes her.

But does he really? From the moment of the explosion, Herrero introduces events that must be attributed to the imagination of the main character—disturbed not so much by the blast, but traumatized by past wartime experiences. We learn that she survived the Srebrenica massacre as a child, losing her family there. Being back in those woods triggers obvious fear and anxiety, intensified by the appearance of the two men, whom Selma instantly recognizes as Serbs. But the director and screenwriter hold back from answering the question of whether history will repeat itself. On one hand, the Spaniard shares the woman’s perspective—her fear, her hatred of the former oppressor, the pain that resurfaces.

Reconciliation is not an option here, as reflected in the bilingual dialogue scenes among the four characters. Even so, the Serbs do not—at least initially—seem overtly hostile. If the rape scene is to be seen as Selma’s vision, their actions could be interpreted as a genuine attempt to help. The violence hinted at from the start must, of course, eventually find its release, but it’s difficult to say whether the terror that unfolds in the film’s second half results more from the woman’s hostility toward strangers or from a premeditated tactic by them.

This ambiguity serves Maus well, as long as the filmmakers aim to explore the relationship between victim and perpetrator, and to portray the ever-burning flame of conflict. Unfortunately, for Herrero, this is not enough.

It is no coincidence that Alex is German—a European. The one who stands between the Bosnian woman and the Serbian men. The one who tries to find common ground with everyone, to ease the situation, to explain and apologize. In the end, he proves too weak—not only to act, but even to grasp the reality of his situation.

It is no accident that he is repeatedly referred to simply as “Europe.” Herrero transforms his small, specific drama into a metaphor—one whose literalness and almost heavy-handedness feel jarring. No one here is left blameless—not the Serbs portrayed as animalistic, not the helpless European, not even the Bosnian Muslim woman, who by the end is reduced to a ghostlike figure of contemporary terrorism. Is that really the message the director intended? It feels less controversial than simply poorly thought out. If this is how the film is to be interpreted, the metaphor doesn’t help—it actually weakens the overall impact of a film that, in its meditation on the psychological aftermath of war, for a long time ran close to the brilliance of Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies.

The horror here lies not only in the trauma of the main character—brilliantly played by Alma Terzić—in her memories and visions, but also takes a more visual form. The deity to whom Selma prays appears on screen several times, evoking associations with the bandaged figure from Zdzisław Beksiński’s painting Crawling Death. Whether the resemblance is intentional, I don’t know, although the Maus poster also gives reason to think so. The question is whether this element of supernatural horror is even necessary in a film where the atmosphere of constant tension is palpable from beginning to end. Perhaps it’s simply easier to capture the audience’s attention with the image of a monster than with the idea of an unending nightmare—one that eventually becomes contagious.