Solid, Tense, Intelligent

Rating: 8/10 (25 September 2009)

No Man's Land (not to be confused with the other eleventy billion films also called No Man's Land), is set in the mind-boggling Serbian-Bosnian-Croatian conflict of the early 1990s, and immediately looks like it's going to be one of those didactic movies out to push the "can't we all get along" message. Fortunately, such is not the case. The action starts with a scenario not altogether unfamiliar (it was used, for instance, in the sci-fi film Enemy Mine), in which, by a series of unfortunate circumstances, two Bosnians (one of them immobilized) and a Serb find themselves trapped in a trench together in the middle of a battleground. Things proceed tensely, if somewhat predictably, until the United Nations and the press get involved. That's when things really begin to develop, and we find ourselves involved a truly brilliant movie about the absurdity of war. You won't know whether to laugh or be ridiculously depressed.