Harry here, this is one that I've been wanting to see for MONTHS NOW!!! However, it is unlikely to enter anywhere near my top ten, given it isn't here in Austin yet. ARGH! Sigh, well here's Capone and from the sounds of it, this is what the hype said it was.
Hey, Harry. Capone in Chicago here. In a year filled with war and war-like images, it seems appropriate that NO MAN’S LAND is one of the last films I’ll see in 2001. This is a tense, moving, and haunting work that will be one of the lasting cinematic memories I have this year. Set in 1993, during the height of the war between Bosnia and Serbia, NO MAN’S LAND takes place almost entirely in a small stretch of trench smack down between the warring parties (thus the title). Anything that moves in this heavily mined area is either blown up or shot to ribbons, which is exactly what happens as the film opens. A lost and poorly guided group of soldiers accidentally ends up in no man’s land one night. In the morning they are spotted and decimated. One remained survivor crawls into the trench to hide and drags the body of his buddy in with him. Soon after, a pair of soldiers from the other side comes to make sure everyone is dead. They find the body pulled into the trench and place a “bouncing” mine under it. As soon as someone moves the body, the mine will spring into the air about three feet and explode, sending hundreds of metal pellets flying in every direction.
The soldier who survived the initial attack leaps from his hiding place, killing one of his enemies and injuring the other. Both living opposing men soon come to realize that any attempt to escape from the trench will probably result in them getting mowed down by one side or the other, so they form a tentative to find a way to escape with help from the United Nations peacekeeping forces. It’s at about this time that the guy with the mine under his ass wakes up.
NO MAN’S LAND is not about two enemies that become friends. At different points during the story, when one man or the other thinks they are safe, their first impulse is to murder the other guy. They hide weapons at one moment, while conspiring with the other man to escape the trench unharmed and somehow save the guy on top of the mine. There is no one clear character we are supposed to sympathize or identify with. They all seem like decent people, but they are also clearly ready and eager to bash each other skulls in. Eventually the two successfully attract the attention of the United Nations in the form of some French U.N. soldiers, who in turn enlist the help of foreign journalists, primarily a British reporter played by Katrin Cartlidge. A German bomb expert is called in. And the situations receives so much international attention eventually that the head of the U.N. forces is called in (Simon Callow, whose slightly bizarre characterization seems lifted directly out of DR. STRANGELOVE).
Writer-director Danis Tanovic has won two fistfuls of audience awards throughout the year at various film festivals, and his screenplay captured the top prize at Cannes. No argument with this decision from me. Tanovic, in the span of slightly more than 90 minutes gives me a clear picture on the nature of war, the business of war (the interplay between the military and the press is particularly eye-opening), and the human cost of war. First and foremost, NO MAN’S LAND is one of the best films on the ridiculousness of war that I’ve ever seen. The man with the mine under him clearly represents the powder keg mentality of the region, and we flinch with fear every time he needs to scratch his leg or announced that he has to go to the bathroom. The film is capped off with a final image that, simply put, I will never ever forget as long as I live. It is a desperate and shattering shot that will put a dark spot on your heart. This film is not designed to make you feel better about your fellow man. Quite the contrary, it confirms our fear that many people in the world view human life as a commodity of little value.
Capone (I've got a plan. Write me for details. Muahhaahaha.)
