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The
story of three men from opposite sides of the Bosnian - Serbian
war who are trapped in a trench between battle lines, "No Man's
Land" is a farce of the conflict played out on a "Waiting for Godot"
scale. The conflicts and resolutions as handled by the three men
serve as an allegory for the savage civil war with each side accusing
the other of atrocities, of backing out of agreements and eventually
abandon hope. Eventually, other parties are drawn into the story
representing the media, the UN and the leaders pushing the buttons.
"No
Man's Land" begins when a patrol of Bosnian volunteers takes refuge
in a fog only to find themselves in open ground when the fog rises
the next day. All but two of the patrol are cut down immediately
by the nearby Serbian line. One man, Ciki, though wounded, makes
it to an abandoned trench in the center of a valley contested by
both sides in the war. The Serbs send a couple men to check it out,
one of whom is raw recruit, Nino. In the firefight that follows,
only Ciki and Nino are left, both wounded and cut off from their
respective sides.
Their
situation is further complicated when another survivor from the
Bosnian patrol, Cera, awakens to find that his 'body' has been booby
trapped by the Serbs so that he cannot move. Nino, the Serb, cannot
leave because he has become Ciki's prisoner. Ciki can't leave because
he doesn't want to abandon his friend Cera. Meanwhile, neither the
Bosnian nor Serb sides know what exactly is going on inside the
trench.
The
three men find themselves trapped not only by their circumstances
but by their psychologies. Unwilling to trust each other and unwilling
to back down, Ciki and Nino take turns one-upping the other, taking
each other prisoner in turns, then deciding on a tense stand off
with both sides shouldering their weapons.
Two
sides on the brink of agreement
While
the film concentrates on the three men as they talk out their versions
of the causes of the war and their own prejudices and commonalities,
"No Man's Land" is good. Confined to the three men, the allegory
can work, with each men representing the misunderstandings, fears
and idealisms of their people. Neither Ciki nor Nino are raving
bigots, but neither are they beyond taking advantage of slips of
the other to the point of shooting and knifing one another when
given the chance. Each drags down the other when one side has a
change to escape the situation.
Unfortunately,
when Ciki and Nino's capers eventually attract the attention of
the United Nations, and the play widens to include other characters,
the allegory breaks down into a series of unsophisticated stereotypes.
A local French-UN sergeant is willing to help get the men out but
is held back by the UN bureaucracy represented by desk-bound administrator
Brit. A team of goulish reporters and TV camera crews home in on
the men's plight, brushing aside the men's feelings in their search
for high ratings blood. A German bomb disposal expert is clinically
efficient but morally cold.
"No
Man's Land" pokes fun at the blue helmeted 'Smurfs' of the
UN
It's at this point, when the media circus descends on the three
men, that "No Man's Land" loses its focus and becomes a flailing
diatribe against the ignorant position of the west which allows
rules to prevent the straight forward rescue of three men. "No Man's
Land" seems to ascribe the failure of the west to intercede to slavish
attention to appearances and rules. In this "No Man's Land" shares
a lot with "Catch-22" and "Paths of Glory". However, unlike these
films, "No Man's Land" paints its strokes with a heavy hand without
injecting humour or smarts.
What
would have been helpful was a script that decided either to be heavy
handed and funny to begin or to go with a more subtle and
dramatic approach. As it is, "No Man's Land" veers between the two
approaches. It makes its points but not in a particularly artful
or entertaining way.
On
DVD.
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