No Man's Land

[Foxbat]

Directed by Danis Tanovic
Starring Bruno Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge
Serbo-Croat with English subtitles

Set in the Bosnian/Serb conflict of recent years, No Man’s Land takes a poke at the absurdity of war.

Two Bosnian’s find themselves in a trench between Serb and Bosnian lines. But there is a snag – not only do they have to share the trench with a similarly-stranded Serb but one of the Bosnians is lying on a mine. If he moves, it will activate by springing into the air and spraying the area with lethal ball bearings.

An uneasy truce occurs between the combatants as they try to figure a way to extricate themselves from this perilous situation. Their only hope it seems is to somehow involve UNPROFOR (United Nations Protection Force) and so set out to somehow raise the alarm of their plight.

Soon they have set in motion a chain of events that is not only bizarre, but brutal in its inevitability.

Here is an anti-war movie of the finest calibre. Tanovic does not try to take sides and attempts to show with black humour the absurdity of conflict and the utter frustration of United Nations troops (affectionately known as Smurfs because of their blue helmets) as they can only stand back and watch. Their impotence fuelled by the politics of the day leads one French sergeant to take drastic measures.

A fine group of actors provide a grim and gripping tale of the Serb/Bosnian conflict condensed into a crucible of drama within a single trench.

A fine piece of movie making that is highly recommended.