No Man's Land (2001)

No Man's Land is a comedy/war film directed by Danis Tanovic about the very complicated situation in Bosnia involving the war. While this movie is comical, we felt it could offend someone of Bosnian culture who has any past ties with the war. Something as detrimental as the Bosnian War isn't something that necessarily you wanna make a joke about. While the movie had some decent comedy, I feel it doesn't touch on the important parts of the Bosnian War. This movie starts off with a group of Bosnian soldiers as they're crossing a field and they stop to take a rest but are quickly ambushed by a group of Serbian soldiers camped upon a hill. One of the Bosnian soldiers escapes the area and rolls in a trench. He starts to bandage himself up after he was shot in the arm and he hears 2 Serbian soldiers looking in the area and they plant a bouncing betty under a dead body incase any Bosnian soldiers try to take the body away. The Bosnian soldier eventually comes out and shoots the captain then holds the other one at gunpoint. He's a bit of a awkward man, bald and his character is comedic because of just how outlandish he is in this war. Like how he is so, quirky unlike everyone else who has such a serious tone. It's quite the contrast of personalities between the Serbian soldier and the Bosnian Soldier. Shortly after, the Bosnian soldier makes the Serbian soldier take off his clothes for humiliation and wave a white flag as he ran across the field. The Serbians see him and don't recognize him so they try to mortar strike the area and they hide in this bunker together. After this, they have a serious argument about who started the war. Shortly after the argument, the guy who was presumed dead and placed on a bouncing betty, wakes up and they immediately warn him not to move as there is a bomb underneath him. They sit there arguing some more and they don't really do anything cause they really can't. They eventually call the UN for a bomb squad and they check but they basically say they can't do anything about it. This enrages the Bosnian guy and he shoots the Serbian guy but then the UN shoots the Bosnian guy and they peace the scene. The movie ends with them laying there. The funny parts of this movie were in the interaction between the Serbian and Bosnian soldier. While it doesn't slander the horrors of the Bosnian War, it still makes it seem so fabricated in the arguments. I have a odd feeling that they wouldn't be that civil. Besides the interaction between the soldiers, I think the representation of the UN that they had were very accurate as they were portrayed as people who were in the middle and really didn't care about what was going on between both sides. Also the brutality of the war is showed vividly, more importantly in the scene where they are mortar striking the Serbian soldier even though they didn't even check to see if he was a comrade or a enemy.

A group of Bosnian reinforcements gets lost in the fog at night. They wake up and get mowed down by the Serbs. Čiki finds himself alone. The Serbs send out an old veteran and newbie Nino to check. They find a body and the grizzled veteran places a bouncing mine under it. Čiki kills the veteran and takes Nino hostage. The body turns out to be Cera who isn't actually dead. The three struggle as the UNPROFOR comes to evacuate whoever is stranded in no man's land. Marchand tries to call in somebody to defuse the mine but his commander Soft insists that they leave immediately. TV reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) hears the exchange on the radio and threatens to shine a light on the ineffective UN.I really like the UN and the black comedy they do. The language barrier is always funny. The ridiculous nature of their work is good for a laugh. I'm not as enamored with the Serb and Bosnian soldiers. It bothers me that they keep not killing each other. It doesn't make any sense that the Bosnian doesn't kill Nino right away. He should kill Nino and try to sneak out during the night. After that, it seems the situation never gets right. I think it would be better to not see how they got into their situation. The movie could start with UN arriving at the checkpoint. There also has to be a better way to make a standoff situation. I wonder if the UN find the two man both stepping on a mine. They can't kill each other because the mines would blow. It would allow them to argue with no holds barred. I don't buy that these guys would take prisoners.

In the case of this movie, the Oscar was well deserved. The film was nominated in the wrong category, though ('Best Foreign Language Film'). It should have been up for 'Best Picture', 'Best Original Screenplay', 'Best Director - and it should have won all of those. As far as I'm concerned, this may very well be the finest film on the subject of war - or conflict in general - that was ever made. I've never seen anything similar; this film manages to show so many aspects of war, of human nature; it somehow manages to capture the essence of something that is inexplicable. Truly one of a kind and a must-see. And don't think for one second that this is some pretentious drivel or slow art-house fare - this is very much the opposite. 10 out of 10.Favorite films: http://www.IMDb.com/list/mkjOKvqlSBs/Lesser-known Masterpieces: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls070242495/Favorite Low-Budget and B-Movies: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls054808375/Favorite TV-Shows reviewed: http://www.imdb.com/list/ls075552387/

This movie was up against "Amélie" in the 2002 Academy Awards and won. So I have to say this right up front: unduly. "No Man's Land" is a well-made movie about a very worthy subject. Amélie is a groundbreaking masterpiece.Now that that's off my chest and I can sleep soundly again, to the movie itself. No Man's Land starts off with a small platoon of Bosniak replacements getting lost in no man's land, and being consequently viciously cut down by the Serb foes when the sun rises. Only two of the platoon survive badly wounded. One of them is being discovered a a Serb patrol, taken for dead, and placed on a live mine (in order to assault Bosniaks trying to salvage the body). The other Bosniak manages to take one Serb hostage. So now we have three wounded, inexperienced soldiers in the middle of mine-riddled nowhere. The movie takes on a parabolic, abstract note because the soldiers are all wounded, but are surprisingly active and talkative. The first half of the movie deals with the three inept, wounded soldiers confronting each other, without having the guts to gun each other down.Then UNPROFOR gets wind of this conundrum and comes to the the rescue. This is when the movie takes on a satirical twist, and becomes more bearable than the realistically dire first half. But eventually there are no winners in this movie. The knights in white (the warring factions call them the smurfs due to their white uniforms and blue helmets) withdraw and leave a mess behind. We are stuck in Bosnia, a far sight away from cute Hollywood endings.Overall a painful but memorable movie.