A war film for Europeans...

Rating: 10/10 (25 September 2001)

Finally, a war film that isn't all about Americans. No Man's Land takes a cynical look at the situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1993; the war between the Serbs and the Croats.
Cynical... absurdist... tongue-in-cheek... the film avoids making a statement about the war and who is fighting who; instead we get two sworn enemy soldiers who don't even have the guts to kill one another, UN peacekeeping troops who can't find a common language amongst themselves let alone communicate with the Bosnians, and a gang of press reporters who outnumber the soldiers and know more about what is going on than anyone else involved.
Yes, it is a war film, but there are no airstrikes, no missiles, no platoons of infantry charging at each other in combat. A few shots are fired, and a handful of people die, but that's it. There are no heroes here, just total confusion and chaos.
Deceptive in nature but utterly charming and compelling underneath, the film thrives on Danis Tanovic's humour which promotes silliness but never comes close to overstepping the boundaries of credibility.
The film is riveting from first minute to last, which is testament to Tanovic's Cannes-prize-winning screenplay, and although the inevitable conclusion is left unspoken, the 90 minutes that preceded it seemed so wholesome and refreshing that I have to award it full marks: 10 out of 10.