A View of the Crucible of Hatred

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 2001)

War movies generally reflect a consistent and predictable filmmaker's view of his or her country. American films often feature the expected bravery of the guy we all recognize and his defiance of stupid superiors. The typical neighborhood types, whatever that really is depending on when the movie was made (a Jew is every platoon in WWII but no blacks, now blacks and Hispanics and Asians in high rank in every service), is engrafted on the action. British films offer the eternal class struggle and stiff upper lip ("Jennifer, dearest, if I don't make it back promise me you'll marry my brother, Rodney."). French war films? Elan plus inevitable failure equals drama. I'll forbear from discussing Italian warpics.
"No Man's Land" stands on its own as a complex portrayal of several men caught up in a continuing conflict that few understand either as combatants or as outside observers. An early interchange between the two key soldiers as to which side started the war illuminates, briefly but effectively, the fog that literally, not merely figuratively, engulfs the Balkans.
The most brilliant aspect of this fine film is the encapsulation of the wildly changing emotions of the two antagonists who share a desire to survive while trapped in a trench between the opposing forces. The war becomes intensely, indeed exclusively, personal and whatever grasp of political, ethnic or ideological differences were held by the soldiers before their predicament are lost in the immediacy of their dilemma.
It would probably have been too much to expect the director to avoid all national stereotyping and the British colonel who is presumed to have some command authority over deployed UN assets will be familiar to many. The French noncom, Sergeant Marchand, is a conflicted, smart, troubled soldier caught up in forces he can barely fully understand and certainly not tame. Many will be amused by the Chistianne Amanpour wannabe, Jane.
The power of this story goes beyond the Balkan conflagration but it also captures the blinding senselessness of a war that, tragically, has no true end in sight.