From projo.com
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Movies
2.22.2002
That last week No Man's Land got an Academy Award nomination is absolutely astonishing and a real boost for the Bosnian film industry.
Of course No Man's Land is about war. What else?
The big shocker of writer-director Danis Tanovic's film, however, is that it very pointedly and very satirically underlines all the absurdities of modern warfare. No last-minute rescues. No big heroes. Just people caught together in calamitous situations and not-so-successfully trying to get on with their lives. On a small scale, it's like Bosnia's very own Dr. Strangelove.
The setup is simple and doesn't give much of a glimmer of how cleverly waspish No Man's Land will later become.
The film opens with a squad of Bosnian soldiers separated from their outfit and lost in the fog. When the fog lifts, the enemy Serbian troops open fire from across the field.
All the Bosnians seem to have been killed. But to make sure, the Serbs send two soldiers -- a seasoned veteran and an inexperienced novice -- to investigate the World War I-type trench that sits between enemy lines to see whether there are survivors.
They discover only one man, who appears dead. The seasoned soldier decides to have a little messy sport by placing a mine under the body. When the dead man's comrades arrive later and lift his corpse, he says, the mine will explode.
But the Serb soldiers hadn't figured on a Bosnian survivor hiding at the other end of the trench, carrying a rifle. Nor did they realize the "dead man" is actually alive and, if he sits up, will explode the mine.
What follows is a darkly comical series of misadventures in a small area that's soon filled with so many people speaking so many different languages that it begins looking like the departure lounge of an international air terminal.
Despite some moves toward a grudging compromise between the Serb and Bosnian soldiers in the trench, especially considering their delicate situation, they're still hostile, still distrustful, still very angry. They use every opportunity to grab a weapon and kill each other.
The panicky booby-trapped man on the mine is growing ever more restless, too. He needs a toilet break.
A frustrated French sergeant, a member of the United Nations peacekeeping force, which has been sworn not to use force, is trying to separate the antagonists with little success.
Soon, a German bomb expert arrives to defuse the mine.
During all this, a pushy British TV newswoman and her cameraman are attempting to cover the rescue live and send it up via satellite for global television.
Meanwhile, the very testy, very publicity-conscious British commander of the U.N. forces is vainly trying to pretend that everything is hunky-dory in the midst of mounting chaos.
"Press conference at twenty-two-hundred hours at the Holiday Inn," he chirps, in a line of dialogue that defines this very strange war.
The outcome of this international stew is all very touch-and-go as Tanovic pushes the envelope of frontline nuttiness in a modern war where technology intrudes to make things even messier. Tanovic has invented lots of amusing twists in his minefield of a black comedy where chuckles mix with horrors.
A rib-tickling running gag finds Sgt. Marchand, the French U.N. peacekeeper, endlessly attempting to communicate with everyone in French, only to maddeningly discover that almost no one speaks his language and he must switch to English.
But in the midst of terrors, No Man's Land finds that life goes on. On battle lines not far from the Holiday Inn, the British newscaster and the French sergeant discover each other. Love, and war, make the strangest bedfellows.
*****
No Man's Land
Starring : Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Georges Siatidis, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge. In Slovenian, French, German and English with English subtitles.
Rated : R, contains violence, profanity.
A war-torn triumph
Satirical dark comedy from Bosnia mines the absurdities of modern combat
We've read so many horror stories from war-torn Bosnia that the arrival of a movie from that unhappy land is surprising. Who'd have guessed that in between all the flying bullets someone would have had time to, pardon the expression, shoot a movie?That last week No Man's Land got an Academy Award nomination is absolutely astonishing and a real boost for the Bosnian film industry.
Of course No Man's Land is about war. What else?
The big shocker of writer-director Danis Tanovic's film, however, is that it very pointedly and very satirically underlines all the absurdities of modern warfare. No last-minute rescues. No big heroes. Just people caught together in calamitous situations and not-so-successfully trying to get on with their lives. On a small scale, it's like Bosnia's very own Dr. Strangelove.
The setup is simple and doesn't give much of a glimmer of how cleverly waspish No Man's Land will later become.
The film opens with a squad of Bosnian soldiers separated from their outfit and lost in the fog. When the fog lifts, the enemy Serbian troops open fire from across the field.
All the Bosnians seem to have been killed. But to make sure, the Serbs send two soldiers -- a seasoned veteran and an inexperienced novice -- to investigate the World War I-type trench that sits between enemy lines to see whether there are survivors.
They discover only one man, who appears dead. The seasoned soldier decides to have a little messy sport by placing a mine under the body. When the dead man's comrades arrive later and lift his corpse, he says, the mine will explode.
But the Serb soldiers hadn't figured on a Bosnian survivor hiding at the other end of the trench, carrying a rifle. Nor did they realize the "dead man" is actually alive and, if he sits up, will explode the mine.
What follows is a darkly comical series of misadventures in a small area that's soon filled with so many people speaking so many different languages that it begins looking like the departure lounge of an international air terminal.
Despite some moves toward a grudging compromise between the Serb and Bosnian soldiers in the trench, especially considering their delicate situation, they're still hostile, still distrustful, still very angry. They use every opportunity to grab a weapon and kill each other.
The panicky booby-trapped man on the mine is growing ever more restless, too. He needs a toilet break.
A frustrated French sergeant, a member of the United Nations peacekeeping force, which has been sworn not to use force, is trying to separate the antagonists with little success.
Soon, a German bomb expert arrives to defuse the mine.
During all this, a pushy British TV newswoman and her cameraman are attempting to cover the rescue live and send it up via satellite for global television.
Meanwhile, the very testy, very publicity-conscious British commander of the U.N. forces is vainly trying to pretend that everything is hunky-dory in the midst of mounting chaos.
"Press conference at twenty-two-hundred hours at the Holiday Inn," he chirps, in a line of dialogue that defines this very strange war.
The outcome of this international stew is all very touch-and-go as Tanovic pushes the envelope of frontline nuttiness in a modern war where technology intrudes to make things even messier. Tanovic has invented lots of amusing twists in his minefield of a black comedy where chuckles mix with horrors.
A rib-tickling running gag finds Sgt. Marchand, the French U.N. peacekeeper, endlessly attempting to communicate with everyone in French, only to maddeningly discover that almost no one speaks his language and he must switch to English.
But in the midst of terrors, No Man's Land finds that life goes on. On battle lines not far from the Holiday Inn, the British newscaster and the French sergeant discover each other. Love, and war, make the strangest bedfellows.
*****
No Man's Land
Starring : Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Georges Siatidis, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge. In Slovenian, French, German and English with English subtitles.
Rated : R, contains violence, profanity.
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