how war snowballs

Rating: 9/10 (23 October 2010)

The horror that engulfed the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s seemingly couldn't get depicted in comedy. But Danis Tanović's "No Man's Land" does just that, albeit as black comedy. It portrays a Bosnian (Branko Djuric) and a Serb (Rene Bitorajac) getting trapped in a foxhole together with a man laying on a mine that will explode if he gets up. Slowly but surely, the news gets out, and the incident is the center of attention.
This movie isn't about the war as much as it's about how the world saw - or wanted to see - the events, and simply the inanity of everything that happened in Bosnia following its independence. The absolute futility of war and colonialism/imperialism is summed up by a repeated line: "I say that it's true because I have a gun and you don't." Not to mention what happens when UNPROFOR gets involved and the media starts covering it.
Without a doubt, "Ničija zemlja" (the title in Bosnian) doesn't paint a pretty picture of international affairs: aside from the genocide itself, there was the helplessness of the foreign governments to do anything about it, and the "human interest story" approach that the press took, much like in Rwanda (which one character mentions). One could consider these the troika of tragedies in any tragic situation. But I definitely recommend the movie. The fact that things similar to the depicted events keep happening casts a sorry shadow on our world.
Also starring Katrin Cartlidge as a reporter and Simon Callow as a general.