|
Review by Susan Granger
4 stars out of 4
One of the best foreign language films of 2001, "No Man's Land" tells
the bizarre tale of two wounded soldiers, a Bosnian and a Serb, trapped in a
trench between enemy lines during the 1993 Bosnian war. Neither the Bosnian Ciki
(Branko Djuric) nor the Serbian Nino (Rene Bitorajac) trust one another. They
bicker about blame, each accusing the other of starting the war, and grapple
repeatedly at gunpoint. But the crux of this anti-war film rests on a third man,
Cera (Filip Sovagovic), Ciki's compatriot, who was shot. Under his seemingly
lifeless body, a Serbian soldier has planted a spring-loaded American-made bomb
known as a "bouncing mine," designed to explode three feet off the ground when
the corpse is eventually retrieved by his comrades. So when the unwitting Cera
revives, both Ciki and Nino realize that - if he moves - they will be killed
along with him. A recent recruit, Nino has no idea how to defuse the bomb. Their
only hope is to attract the attention of the United Nations humanitarian force
which patrols the area. (The scene recalls "Catch 22.") But their predicament is
also picked up by an aggressive, ambitious Global News Network reporter (Katrin
Cartlidge) who monitors UN communications and is determined to snag interviews
with the participants. Unlike the slick but less-effective "Behind Enemy Lines,"
imaginative Balkan writer/director Danis Tanovic delves deeper than the surface
story-line, using the various soldiers' language barriers in communicating to
reveal the inherent moral absurdity of the conflict, the bureaucratic ineptitude
of the timid peace-makers, and the opportunism of the media. On the Granger
Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "No Man's Land" is a tense, powerful, ironic 10, finding
prickly scraps of futile humor in the devastating horror of war.
Copyright © 2001 Susan Granger
|
