zucherman:

Belgrade.

When I arrived in Serbia to work on The Brother’s Bloom, I was graciously welcomed and promptly whooshed into a car to be driven to the movie set.  The large, friendly, and suitably wry Serbian driver regaled me with interesting histories of the city in only somewhat broken English (which is to say, he picked his words more hesitantly than he probably needed to) as we flew through Belgrade’s foreign streets, the sun low and honey and cocktail-hourish, the bricks of the buildings old and rising and crumbled, with smeary windows of dull yellow light; other buildings ornate, statuesque, clean and brilliant.  As the car peeled through one stretch of staggered, bombed-out buildings, still standing amidst rubble and hollowed out sections, long abandoned, all crossbeams and glittering glass shards and exposed, flame-scorched concrete, the driver winked in the rearview mirror.

“We have your country to thank for this,” he said.

“I apologize,” I said.