No Man's Land (Widescreen/Full Screen)

Perhaps this is out of line but from a Western point of view Muslims persecute those who are of a Western background. As this movie shows and as anyone who is relatively informed of world events knows, Muslims are also persecuted. This movie takes the viewer, in a modern day Catch-22, into the heart of the conflict: individuals.

The movie is strangely lacking in sensationalism. It presents situations and the slow unfolding of the situation. It is the subtlety of the characters' interaction with one another that allows the drama to unfold. The drama begins with human beings and human beings reveal why it is that war is so complex. In the trench in which the movie unfolds, the human element begins to surface. We feel a connection with all of the characters and while we may not understand we begin to feel.

The Serbian and the Bosnian, bitter enemies, find connection on a human plane. One of the Frenchmen working for the 'neutral' United Nation's peacekeeping force shows his human side when he tires of playing passive observing, revealing that not to choose sides is to choose sides. The British television journalist shows her human side when she begins to understand the fine line between good journalism and exploitation. Even the man sitting on the mine shows just how human all of this is. All these elements merge in the trench.

While I watched it in subtitles it became obvious that the language differences revealed just how complicated human interaction can be. Something as seemingly simple as failure to communicate can not only be bridged by tragedy but how failure to communicate can lead to tragedy as well.

From a Western point of view, the world is pretty much black and white, good guys and bad guys, win or lose, right or wrong. This movie slowly reveals, with the 'Western' mode of thought shown as complicating rather than helping, the absurdity of war. There are no easy answers, war is never so cut and dry as we seem to sometimes think.

There are no clear answers, we can never really know or understand what happens to men during warfare and we are ultimately all just human beings in the end with all our complications. War is complicated. So are we. This movie unfolds the complication from a very human point of view that shuns Hollywood's antics. And it does so brilliantly.

The movie has lingered with me in a way few movies have.

A satire not only on the Balkan war, but also on human frailties and the follies of human institutions as a whole: Once the dark side of human nature is triggered, destruction is a River of No Return.

Where does truth lie: with those holding the gun wielding power? Was the United Nations, vested with the greatest power in this matter, in fact taking side by literaly taking no side? Wasn't the Commander General of the UN army (a British) who wouldn't like to get involved, wise after all: Wasn't the result much the same despite all the efforts? Were the media, exposing the inertia of UN army, doing anybody any service other than themselves? Was the French troop necessarily more helpful by being warm hearted than the British? If so, where did it lead us to?

The film is more like a play than a movie, but we don't need much settings anyway. There is bloodshed but never too bloody, only sadness and definitely not a boredom. You can easily finish it, so to speak, within one breath. However, note that the photos on the box of the DVD are not equally attractive. It may even be misleading at least until you have finished watching the film.

"No Man's Land," starring Branko Djuric as Ciki (pronounced Tcheeky) and Rene Bitorajac as Nino shows the pragmatics of war. These two men represent each side of the Serbian-Bosnian conflict.

Both are convinced that the other side started it, and later, both are convinced the other side is bombing them directly. Both learn of the injustices done in the name of war done by their own side.

The tension of the story is not the war, but the survival of three men, Ciki, Nino, and Cera (pronounced Tsera, played by Filip Sovagovic).

Ciki, a Bosnian, and Nino, a Serb, end up in a foxhole. Neither wants to be there, and both need the other to get out alive. They don't care about the other, even as they find some common ground like a former lover they each had. The war and its wage of death is the vault between them truly acknowledging the other's humanity, but they lean on each other awkwardly, but effectively to persuade the UN to save them, and Cera, also a Bosnian.

The trouble is that Cera lays upon a mine that will detonate when he moves. Naturally, then, he stays still. The fear of the mine blowing up provides the need for them to work toward a solution. With no obvious fix, they attract the UN, who are a mix of competent and incompetent, passive and intentional leaders. The UN's indecisiveness jeopardizes the soldiers, and their philosophical unwillingness to resolve the problem only exacerbates the anger between the soldiers.

It carefully stands away from the divisive, bitter fight, indicating that the both sides aren't pure in motivation. Each character is so far removed from whatever started the conflict, that any ending becomes a tragedy.

There are two sides to any war: those who are governing it, and those who are fighting in it. Within that war, among those fighting in it, are two more sides: those who believe in the fight, and those conscripted to be there. All are part of this movie.

"No Man's Land" shows that the Big Muddy, as Pete Seeger once sang of WWII, is not just in 1942 or Vietnam. In the trenches, as a force of war's reality, evil occurs. It is the default of war that men are asked to kill, and it is the default of man that the living will die.

I fully recommend "No Man's Land." For a look at a similarly powerful movie about the Irish conflict, see Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson in 1994's "In the Name of the Father."

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com