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http://www.sptimes.com/2002/02/21/news_pf/Weekend/Folly_in_the_trenches.shtml
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Folly in the trenches of Bosnia
By STEVE PERSALL, Times Film Critic
� St. Petersburg Times, published February 21, 2002
The follies of war are brilliantly skewered in a Bosnian trench by first-time director
Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land.
The follies of war are brilliantly skewered in a Bosnian trench by first-time director
Danis Tanovic's No Man's Land.
Tanovic takes a simple setup, enemies trapped together, and turns the situation into
a Strangelovian satire. It doesn't matter whether Serbs or Croats were justified to
fight; Tanovic's view is that things have spun out of control so long that mending
barbed-wire fences now is impossible.
The film opens in 1993 when a Serb patrol gets lost in a fog, a clever piece of
symbolism. The soldiers are ambushed, but one, Ciki (Branko Djuric), survives and
tumbles into a battlefield trench.
He watches as two Croats inspect the trench and install a land mine under a fallen
comrade, an insidious booby trap that will mutilate anyone lifting the body. Ciki kills
one soldier and wounds another, Nino (Rene Bitorajac). A stalemate develops until
the rivals realize that the booby-trapped soldier, Cera (Filip Sovagovic), isn't dead.
But if Cera moves in the slightest way, they all will be.
News of the situation attracts United Nations peacekeepers (snidely referred to as
Smurfs because of their powder-blue helmets). Tanovic saves his sharpest barbs for
these referees, depicting them as well-intended posers without genuine impact.
Right behind the U.N. on Tanovic's hit list is the electronic media, represented by TV
reporter Jane Livingstone (Katlin Cartridge), who knows the drama in that trench
could earn big ratings.
No Man's Land never stoops to slapstick, but Tanovic's canny sense of the absurd
makes everyone appear to be slipping on political banana peels. It's a film laden with
wise metaphors and offhand gestures of incompetence when they're needed least.
The movie becomes its own sly punch line.
Knowledge of Bosnian war dynamics isn't necessary because the human failings
contributing to the mess are universal. The laughs catch in your throat with Tanovic's
final image, a stunning symbol of a post-Sept. 11 world bracing for the next
senseless explosion.
No Man's Land won the Golden Globe for best foreign language film and is
nominated for an Academy Award in the foreign film category. The film also won the
best screenplay award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Shown with English subtitles, although much of the dialogue is in English.
No Man's Land
Grade: A
Director: Danis Tanovic
Cast: Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Katrin Cartlidge
Screenplay: Danis Tanovic
Rating: R; profanity, violence
Running time: 98 min.
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