The Universe of an Insane War, Showed in a Trench in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Rating: 9/10 (6 April 2004)

In a trench in Bosnia-Herzegovina, two Serbs are looking for Bosnian soldiers. They find one of them apparently dead, and one of the Serbs puts a fragmentation mine under his body. Ciki (Branko Djuric), another Bosnian soldier hidden in the trench, shoots at them. In the end, the apparently dead Bosnian soldier Cera (Filip Sovagovic) is indeed alive with a mine under his body, and Bosnian Ciki and the Serb Nino (Rene Bitorajac) are hurt and equally armed in an even situation. They decide to ask for help in a very peculiar way. The French UN soldier Marchand (Georges Siatidis) tries to help the men and disobeys his superiors order, using the journalist Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) as a kind of scapegoat in a very uncommon situation. In the end, a circus is armed in the trench and nothing is resolved. Yesterday, I saw this excellent movie for the third time. In a surrealistic situation, the director Danis Tanovic offers the universe of this insane war using a few characters. It is very metaphoric and has a kind of black humor. We have two Bosnians and two Serbs, one of them having the sick idea of mining a dead body. The rage among the three survivors alternates with some dialogs about a common friend and who initiated the war. Indeed, they do not clearly know why they are fighting against each other, and the other soldiers are unable to identify who is who without wearing uniforms. The ridiculous, bureaucratic and hypocrite role of the UN in this war is explicitly demonstrated. Maybe this is the unique film that really touches the wound relative to the performance of UN in this war. The idealist soldier is unable to help whom needs and feels very frustrated when the situation is ended. The journalists trying to obtain a matter, but not taking care in investigating `the trench' a little further after achieving their objectives. `No Man's Land' is another excellent movie about the Bosnian war, inclusive an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, and highly recommended for any audience. If the reader likes this theme, I would like to suggest the excellent `Harrison's Flowers', `Vukovar', `Pretty Village, Pretty Flame', `Shot Through the Heart', `Welcome to Sarajevo' and `Savior'. My vote is nine.
Title (Brazil): `Terra de Ninguém' (`No Man's Land')