Review of   Emiliano Baglio Emiliano Baglio

Excursion

(Film, 2023)

The underlying theme of  Excursion is sex.

Iman (Asja Zara Lagumdžija), androgynous physique and colored hair, is a girl like many others who one day at school, during spin the bottle, she told her classmates that she had had sex with a boy much older than her.

It's obvious that it's not true but little by little Iman becomes a victim herself of his innocent lie.

Una Gunjak offers us a film which, at the same time, is a journey into adolescence and a merciless portrait of her country; Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In the background there is the echo of a true story, that of seven students who apparently all became pregnant during a school trip.

The scandal, the fact that even Iman's class is planning the annual school trip and the story of the girl, who at a certain point also stages an alleged pregnancy, merge into one another.

The whole thing falls apart in a reality that is ready to judge Iman and which subjects her to a real trial.

Obviously the girl's first executioners are her own classmates, worried that the scandal will prevent them from going to school trip and who gang up against Iman until they lead to real acts of violence.

Then there is society, embodied by the school, which instead of protecting the student subjects her to a real public pillory .

Finally, never dormant, the wounds of the conflict re-emerge in the form of ferocious jokes against the Serbs.

What emerges is a merciless portrait of a country ready to judge women, dominated by a chauvinist and racist mentality which echoes atrocious comments such as that of a parent for whom the seven girls who are said to be pregnant "went looking for her".

Iman goes through a real ordeal in which a an innocent lie leads her to apparently lose everything to the point of extreme humiliation and yet, despite everything, in the end the girl finally seems free and although alone she can move towards the future regardless of people's judgements.