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Movie Review: No Man's Land (Tanovic)

No Man's Land tells a story set during the Bosnian war, a setting with which I am becoming more familiar. Instead of trying to give an overview of the entire situation, it focuses on a specific event to use as an analogy for the whole war. Two soldiers, who under other circumstances could have been friends, are trapped in a trench, with one holding the other hostage and both worried about getting killed by either side. A third man lays trapped on a landmine, and no one seems to know how to help him. The local UN forces try to get involved, but the bosses are more concerned with politics and reputation than helping people. Reporters seem interested in their story most of all, but they do have a compassionate side as well. The movie seemed to stay surprisingly neutral about the two sides in the war, although maybe pro-Bosnian, although that could be my bias. But the resolution, while seeming a little absurd, did seem to sum up the whole war in some ways.

I'm not convinced this was a better movie than Amelie, though - it certainly had an advantage because it was about an important current-events topic. It is always hard to compare upbeat movies with depressing ones, too. But Amelie felt like something magical, and this felt a little bit too constructed, which to me makes it not quite as good. Of course, magic is constructed, too, but I still wasn't completely convinced.

The other comparison I made during the movie was to Safe Area Gorazde, and again it is a difficult comparison but probably not quite favorable to No Man's Land. SAG was able to give the broad perspective while highlighting lots of individual stories. Being based on actual events also made it more powerful. However, since that was my first exposure to the details of this situation, it has an advantage in how powerful it comes across.

In any case, it was a well-made movie, and worth watching to get a feel for the absurdity of war, and some of the realities of it. Unfortunately it isn't as far away as we like to think.