No Man's Land

Released 2001
Stars Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Georges Siatidis, Serge-Henri Valcke, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge
Directed by Danis Tanovic

"No Man's Land" opens with a Bosnian relief patrol getting lost in the night fog. In the morning the fog lifts, and the patrol realizes they wandered too near the Serbian front. As soon as they realize this, the Serbs open fire and slaughter the patrol, but one member is blown into a trench and survives. The trench is in between the front lines drawn by the Serbs and the Bosnians, innaccessible by either side but well within each other's gunsights. It's truly a no man's land. Shortly after the shooting, two Serbs are able to creep into the trench to see if there are any survivors, and this sets up a see-saw battle for control between two wounded soldiers. To complicate things they have to contend with a third soldier who's lying on top of a mine and can't be moved.

This movie is much different (and better) than I expected. It was a favorite at Cannes and won the 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, but the cover art made it look like a heart-warming story where two soldiers from opposite sides learn to view each other as people instead of hated enemies. Wrong. It's a darkly satirical story that has a lot of anger for everyone involved. The movie tries to be fair, but it's definitely sympathetic to the Bosnians. I wasn't surprised to see director/writer Danis Tanovic was Bosnian and spent time with the Bosnian army, but I think he was pretty fair for a person from that background.

Bill Alward, May 15, 2002

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