En tierra de nadie

This is a deeply disturbing film that everyone should see. It brings home the true insanity of war and the total depravity of the human mind. War is a sick, sick business that doesn't care about the human condition. It boggles my mind that some people think it was funny!! They need to spend a day in a war-torn country because they're too distanced from the horrors -- this is not MASH.

In a trench in Bosnia-Herzegovina, two Serbs are looking for Bosnian soldiers. They find one of them apparently dead, and one of the Serbs puts a fragmentation mine under his body. Ciki (Branko Djuric), another Bosnian soldier hidden in the trench, shoots at them. In the end, the apparently dead Bosnian soldier Cera (Filip Sovagovic) is indeed alive with a mine under his body, and Bosnian Ciki and the Serb Nino (Rene Bitorajac) are hurt and equally armed in an even situation. They decide to ask for help in a very peculiar way. The French UN soldier Marchand (Georges Siatidis) tries to help the men and disobeys his superiors order, using the journalist Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) as a kind of scapegoat in a very uncommon situation. In the end, a circus is armed in the trench and nothing is resolved. Yesterday, I saw this excellent movie for the third time. In a surrealistic situation, the director Danis Tanovic offers the universe of this insane war using a few characters. It is very metaphoric and has a kind of black humor. We have two Bosnians and two Serbs, one of them having the sick idea of mining a dead body. The rage among the three survivors alternates with some dialogs about a common friend and who initiated the war. Indeed, they do not clearly know why they are fighting against each other, and the other soldiers are unable to identify who is who without wearing uniforms. The ridiculous, bureaucratic and hypocrite role of the UN in this war is explicitly demonstrated. Maybe this is the unique film that really touches the wound relative to the performance of UN in this war. The idealist soldier is unable to help whom needs and feels very frustrated when the situation is ended. The journalists trying to obtain a matter, but not taking care in investigating `the trench' a little further after achieving their objectives. `No Man's Land' is another excellent movie about the Bosnian war, inclusive an Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 2001, and highly recommended for any audience. If the reader likes this theme, I would like to suggest the excellent `Harrison's Flowers', `Vukovar', `Pretty Village, Pretty Flame', `Shot Through the Heart', `Welcome to Sarajevo' and `Savior'. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): `Terra de Ninguém' (`No Man's Land')

I'm glad the IMDb featured this flick as its movie of the day, it is a great film and one which I think a lot of people passed over because it has... (shudder) sub-titles. : ) I am always aghast at some people's reactions to "foreign films" (in other words not Hollywood-produced), much less if it actually requires you to READ the dialogue. If you like war movies (and I am talking about those war movies which have you contemplate the brutality and morality of armed conflict, not those that glorify it... although those can be fun too) then you will... well perhaps "enjoy" is too strong a word as I found parts truly horrifying, not in a "look at the gore" way but in a "man is a terrible beast" way... so let's say "captivate" you with its intensity and what I felt to be an honest assessment of war and this conflict in particular. Greatly acted and a great idea behind the movie, this film gets 10/10 from me, though as I mentioned it is not the same 10/10 a LOTR or Star Wars gets, this movie is not a popcorn muncher but one that will get you thinking and keep you thinking long after the credits finish.

The story was set in the Yugoslavian civil war in the early 90's. One soldier from each side of the battle was trapped between the front lines of the two rivals. They cannot leave the trench because if they do, the army will fire and kill them. To make things worse, there was a third soldier who was placed on a landmine, which would explode when the pressure on the landmine is released (i.e. when he gets up from a lying down position).

This is such a sad story with plenty of extremely touching scenes. It provokes people to think that there are so many ridiculous things that people do to each other during wars. People think that by killing each other the problem can be solved. This is a highly upsetting idea. It also revealed the terrible bureaucracy of some organisations, which gives little regard for human life.

Although it portrayed that the two rival soldiers had a lot of anger and distrust between them, there are times that it showed that they are also human. The two of them talked and found out that there was a girl that they both knew. I think that they were living in the same country, and they were just like any other civilians, just like you and me. They could have been living the same type of life, and suddenly friends became enemies.

In this film there were no large scale battle scenes like in `Saving Private Ryan' or `Gallipoli'. However, this film is just as sad and emotionally provoking like any other outstanding anti-war movie. It tells people the absurdity of war, and how crazy people can be during war. I was very shocked to know that the soldiers in Yugoslavia really put landmines beneath bodies, so that when the bodies are cleared away, the landmine would explode and kill the dead man's friends and relatives. This behaviour is extremely sickening. The inventor of such landmines is also very disgusting. I wonder, how can people create such a sophisticated device, and use it in such a ruthless way to kill? I have always thought that, if these people who invent killing machines go to invent some other machines instead, maybe we would be living in the `future world' portrayed in the film already. Our technology would be more advanced than it is now.

However, nowadays the weapons are getting more complicated, advanced, deadly and destructive every day. It saddens me a lot, because I never understood why a war has to start. The most ironic thing is that, the man who decides to wage a war against another country is always unharmed, because he sits in his office and has a large team of army to protect him. He does not die in the war. But because of his decision, millions of young men have to die.

Though there is such a grave message behind this film, there is also a lighter side to it. There were a lot of scenes which are funny, and all the viewers laughed and clapped for the witty statements. For example, when the two soldiers were trapped in the trench, they were discussing which side did more war crimes. The soldier who got the gun won the argument, and the possession of the gun changed a few times. There was another scene which a soldier searched the pockets of a soldier whom he just killed, and found a picture of a naked man.

Another scene which everyone laughed was that, a soldier asked the soldier lying on the landmine if he was OK. The poor soldier replied 'Of course I am OK, I got shot, and then I was unconscious, and then woke up and found there is a landmine beneath me, and then the whole world is watching me, and then I want to go to toilet, and now I was greeted by rubbish statements from my friend'.

I hope this film would make people understand that wars are completely vile and barbaric, and no one would start a war again.

I saw this early this morning at the a film festival in Gotemburg.The director was there and all.It´s a very frightening anti-war film that has three main characters two of them are Bosnian´s and one of them is a Serb.They are soldiers but also normal men.And war makes hate.This is a very symbolic film I would call a masterpiece.Those three persons together shows what war is:HELL.

The director Danis Tanovic himself says that it´s of course about just this war but it´s not like if you see this film in ten years you wont understand it.During their time on no man´s land they are civil to each other but the conflict continues and in the end that´s what is most important.The final scene of the film is superb.

A film that will go to film history.Worth to see by everyone.5/5