One of the Best Pictures of the Year, shattering and brilliant

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2001)

First time featue film writer/director/composer Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land is a great example of a war satire, though it is so realistic it shimmers on the edge of reality and fiction to the point where you just sit back in a form of awe. Tanovic depicts the nature of men in war, nothing new, but the way it's done here is what's remarkable. Here, a Bosnian (Djuric) hides out in a trench from Serbian fire, only to have 2 Serbians (one being Bitorajac) come into the trench to see if there are survivors. The bosnian kills one of them, and leaves Bitorajac in the trench with him. This causes a conflict with the men having to wait on the UN to get them out, and to help out Djuric's best friend (played with heartbreaking accuracy by Sovagovic) who is on a land mine that will explode if he moves off it.
A tad cliched, but when it's a satire, it might need to be a little cliched, especially with a war movie. Still, Tanovic has created a film that breaks a lot of the boundaries of many war movies and in it has made a remarkable work. The last shot is pitch perfect. A+