The Flipcritic

Not many people completely understand the Bosnian-Serbian conflict that went on during the 1990s (in some residual instances, is still going on today). But most of us have a good idea of the amount of hatred that exists between the two cultures. I once saw a special on CNN about a month before the bloodshed began, that attempted to make sense of the history behind the Balkans war. It explained that if you combined the hatred of the Palestinians and Israelis against each other, and multiplied it by 10, then we would gain a good understanding how the Serbs and Bosnians felt about each other.

I can think of no other film that encapsulates the Balkan dilemma in terms of attitudes and irony, as well as NO MAN'S LAND does. It won the Cannes Film Festival's award for Best Screenplay, and beat out AMELIE for Best Foreign Language Film at the Academy Awards. It's an odd picture, displaying a bleak sense of humor out of an extreme circumstance. It should be noted that we may find the movie's premise highly unlikely, one must remember that such events may have been going on away from the world's notice. The movie is categorized as a comedy, but rarely is anything in it truly funny.

The movie revolves around a peculiar trench situation. In the early morning, Bosnian soldiers walk through a thick fog to get to their front. Once it clears, they find themselves in the sights of Serbian forces. All of them are gunned down except for Ciki (Branko Djuric). He escapes wounded by falling into a trench between the Bosnian and Serbian fronts. The Serbs send two of their soldiers to inspect the trench, and once they enter, they place one of the Bosnian casualties on mine to kill any of his comrades who may happen to discover him. Ciki kills one of them, and wounds another named Nino (Rene Bitorajac).

Ciki wants Nino to help him out of the trench, but Nino doesn't have the map that guides them out of the minefield that surrounds them. Nor does he have the expertise to diffuse the mine he help lay below his comrade. But guess what? Ciki's comrade, Cera (Filip Sovagovic) appears to be alive, and upon regaining consciousness, he is warned frantically to not move, since the mine beneath him may kill them all. As they figure out how to get out, they take turns pulling guns (even knives) on each other to gain the upper hand (At one point, Cera threatens to kill both Ciki and Nino to stop fighting should he decide to stand up). Both fronts discover that each man is from both sides, inclining both to call the UN to go the trench and sort things out.

The events that I have described sound like something out of a Monty Python scenario, but the movie does not trivialize every aspect it plays out to great degree. Most of the laughs that are drawn out come from viewing the absurdity of this war as every situation unfolds. We get to see how each side finally gets the chance to blame each other, coming up with reason after reason on which side was responsible for starting the war. Who wins the arguments? The one who has the gun, and that is one of the saddest truths of this movie. In the end, the one who has the gun makes the rules.

But the trench situation does not comprise of all of the film's moments. We also get to see the conflicted UN personnel, disdainfully called cartoon characters by both sides because of their blue helmets (Ciki: The smurfs are here!). We watch as one French UN Sergeant is sickened by his organization's neutral stance as he is delayed or not permitted to prevent any further violence. He and his two subordinates get to the trench and try to radio headquarters for a mine expert, but are called back because of the bureaucratic backlog created by the head UN observer assigned there aptly named Soft (Simon Callow of SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE).

Another important character is Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge of FROM HELL), a sardonic British news reporter who seems to care about the ongoing conflict, but cares more about getting her stories. She is able to help the Sergeant get his needed aid by blackmailing his immediate superiors with construed facts (seeing her do this is one of the movie's treats). Her zeal helps get the needed reinforcements, but is repugnant later on when all she wants to do is interview the two opposing soldiers in the trench. At one point her producer urges her to try and film the de-mining.

NO MAN'S LAND has a lot of very meaningful things to say. It mocks the UN's failure in addressing both Bosnians and Serbs because of their own fractions. Throughout the movie, the UN personnel need translators to communicate with the warring sides, and even with their own German mine expert. This inability to correspond inevitably becomes a metaphor for the war as all sides have trouble understanding one another. In Soft's indecisiveness, the film speaks out at how the world seems apathetic towards the Balkan people. Ever wonder why the US sent troops to intervene in Kuwait in a heartbeat and took them more than a year to send troops to the Balkans? Many say it's the oil, and how can you argue against that? Nowhere is this sentiment more evident than in the film's funniest line.

Bosnian Soldier 1: (Reading the newspaper) God!
Bosnian Soldier 2: What's wrong?
Bosnian Soldier 1: What a mess in Rwanda!

But most of all, NO MAN'S LAND is an anti-war movie. What I liked about it is how it shows its outlook not so much through violence, but through dialogue. It shows that some wars are brought about by countless acts and counteracts of hatred that forgiveness is only the possible way of ending them. It reminded me of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where revenge is sought everyday. Their violence has gone so far back in history (not as long as the Balkans), that what other solution could there be but a cessation of all hostilities? The movie's subtlety is also in its cinematography, which shows picturesque forest landscape and a beautiful sky. How man can destroy himself in these surroundings is heartbreaking.

What I will remember most about NO MAN'S LAND are its symbols, which may simplify the Balkan war to its essence. Ciki is Bosnia, Nino is Serbia, and the mine is the desperate situation both of them find themselves in. The UN can help, and sometimes wants to, but is hindered by bureaucracy and disunity. Jane, the media, is a vulture feeding off the Balkans' misery. Moving Cera can result in killing people or saving them, but no one wants to, because it is too difficult. Like the sergeant says, "They're all maniacs."

Posted by FLIPCRITIC at August 11, 2002 12:00 AM