Movie Review: No Man's Land

By Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune Movie Critic

War is hell, and the movies, it seems, never tire of letting us know it. But the spectacle of war, on film or TV, can be insanely exhilarating, madly entertaining.

In the remarkable, ferociously intelligent new film "No Man's Land," Bosnian writer-director Danis Tanovic gives us a movie portrait of the Bosnian War, a conflict that has devastated his country, friends and neighbors and found in it both shocking humor and searing, relentless tragedy. One of the major hits at the last Cannes Film Festival, where it won Tanovic the Best Screenplay prize, this is an explosively suspenseful, deeply moving dark comedy and an astonishingly assured fiction debut from Tanovic, who has covered the real war close up as a documentarian. It's also one of the great anti-war movies of our time.

Set in the "no man's land" between Serbian and Bosnian firing lines on a hot, sunny day, the movie shows the absurd clash of three soldiers from the two sides who become trapped together in the central trench, triggering a standoff and an international media frenzy.

The three trapped soldiers, sweating it out as the world negotiates around them, are comic everymen, beautifully acted by a largely Slovenian cast. Ciki (Branko Djuric) is a shaggy, often frightened Bosnian soldier; Cera (Filip Sovagovic) is his beefier, smarter buddy. Nino (Rene Bitorajac) is a bespectacled, sensitive Serb with a cynical older compatriot (Mustafa Nadarevic). Early on, Nino's partner is killed after he places a deadly spring-loaded mine under the unconscious Cera, whom he believes dead. That leaves Cera lying on a bomb that will explode if he moves off it, and Ciki and Nino trading insults and guns, sympathy and fury, as one or the other briefly takes charge. Trying to supply rationality is an idealistic French UN sergeant, Marchand, (Serge-Henri Valcke) who struggles to save the two, despite his superiors' passivity. Turning an international spotlight on the affair is firebrand TV reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge), who feeds reports to a network delighted at the drama she creates. Continually making matters worse is the smug popinjay British UN commander Soft (Simon Callow), who is concerned mostly with public relations and his sex life.

One of the most horrifying and convincing elements of "No Man's Land" is the way even the well-meaning characters, like Jane and Marchand, contribute to the madness. Grim and hilarious by turns, "No Man's Land" encapsulates Bosnia's wartime agonies in the desperate plight of these soldiers; it's a rare example of a probing, brave contemporary work that's also full of crowd-pleasing laughs and excitement.

At Cannes, "No Man's Land," and "Apocalypse Now Redux" got the two longest, loudest audience ovations of the entire festival. They both deserved them. "No Man's Land" is one of the best, most memorable films of the year, one of the funniest and one of the saddest. It shows us a war so painfully absurd, so hellish and chaotic, we know it must be real.

"No Man's Land"

Directed and written by Danis Tanovic; photographed by Walther Vanden Ende; edited by Francesca Calvelli; production designed by Dusko Milavec; music by Tanovic; produced by Frederique Dumas-Zajdela, Marc Baschet, Cedomie Kolar. English, French and Serbian-Bosnian, subtitled. A United Artists release; opens Friday, Dec. 21. Running time: 1:37. MPAA rating: R (language and violence).

Ciki Branko Djuric

Nino Rene Bitorajac

Cera Filip Sovagovic

Marchand Georges Siatidis

Soft Simon Callow

Jane Livingstone Katrin Cartlidge