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Fantastic!

Absolutely brilliant

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

No Man's Land is a comedy/war film directed by Danis Tanovic about the very complicated situation in Bosnia involving the war. While this movie is comical, we felt it could offend someone of Bosnian culture who has any past ties with the war. Something as detrimental as the Bosnian War isn't something that necessarily you wanna make a joke about. While the movie had some decent comedy, I feel it doesn't touch on the important parts of the Bosnian War. This movie starts off with a group of Bosnian soldiers as they're crossing a field and they stop to take a rest but are quickly ambushed by a group of Serbian soldiers camped upon a hill. One of the Bosnian soldiers escapes the area and rolls in a trench. He starts to bandage himself up after he was shot in the arm and he hears 2 Serbian soldiers looking in the area and they plant a bouncing betty under a dead body incase any Bosnian soldiers try to take the body away. The Bosnian soldier eventually comes out and shoots the captain then holds the other one at gunpoint. He's a bit of a awkward man, bald and his character is comedic because of just how outlandish he is in this war. Like how he is so, quirky unlike everyone else who has such a serious tone. It's quite the contrast of personalities between the Serbian soldier and the Bosnian Soldier. Shortly after, the Bosnian soldier makes the Serbian soldier take off his clothes for humiliation and wave a white flag as he ran across the field. The Serbians see him and don't recognize him so they try to mortar strike the area and they hide in this bunker together. After this, they have a serious argument about who started the war. Shortly after the argument, the guy who was presumed dead and placed on a bouncing betty, wakes up and they immediately warn him not to move as there is a bomb underneath him. They sit there arguing some more and they don't really do anything cause they really can't. They eventually call the UN for a bomb squad and they check but they basically say they can't do anything about it. This enrages the Bosnian guy and he shoots the Serbian guy but then the UN shoots the Bosnian guy and they peace the scene. The movie ends with them laying there. The funny parts of this movie were in the interaction between the Serbian and Bosnian soldier. While it doesn't slander the horrors of the Bosnian War, it still makes it seem so fabricated in the arguments. I have a odd feeling that they wouldn't be that civil. Besides the interaction between the soldiers, I think the representation of the UN that they had were very accurate as they were portrayed as people who were in the middle and really didn't care about what was going on between both sides. Also the brutality of the war is showed vividly, more importantly in the scene where they are mortar striking the Serbian soldier even though they didn't even check to see if he was a comrade or a enemy.

Danis Tanovic's film 'No Man´s Land' is a realistic portrayal of a war scenario, with all its absurdity and uselessness. Through beautiful cinematography, flawless direction and outstanding performances, it manages to capture the depth of human conflict and at the same time, provide some memorable moments of stinging, black humor, which makes the film both highly intelligent and entertaining. Oscar for 'best foreign film', well deserved. 9/10.

About halfway through No Man's Land (2001), a minor character reads a newspaper and vexes about the situation in Rwanda. We all know what he is talking about when he refers to the "situation" but we as the audience can't help but giggle at his comment. For this minor character, and in fact all the characters are trapped in a very similar situation; the Balkan conflict/genocide following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Yet through this singular comment, one can get a true sense of the caustic world director Danis Tanovic creates for us.The film starts with a group of Bosnian soldiers traipsing through dense fog. They are on their way to the front but have gotten lost and decide to camp out for the night. The next morning they discover they are in the middle of no man's land, the space between two enemy lines. All but one (Branko Duric) manages to crawl into an abandoned trench. The rest are mowed down by friendly fire. Two Serbian soldiers are sent into the fray to see what had happened; one is killed, the other (Rene Bitorajac) injured and trapped along with the Bosnian in the middle of two fronts. Just as things are starting to calm down between the two, a second Bosnian survivor (Filip Sovagovic), previously thought to be dead, wakes up and discovers he is booby-trapped with a mine under his back, unable to move.The central crisis isn't so much a tension fructifying experience that allows for character development and constructive dialogue, it's rather a story of wicked satire about modern warfare with the three in no man's land becoming pawns in a complex and lugubrious conflict. At first no one seems willing to help these men; not the Bosnians, not the Serbians and certainly not the United Nations. It is only through the rash decisions of U.N. peacekeeper Sergeant Marchand (Georges Siatidis) and intrepid reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) that these soldiers' problem becomes a bit of a global fascination.Remember the days when war was fought between two opposing forces who would duke it out in geometric formations? Noble men would sacrifice themselves for their country and charge heroically into the fray; ramparts, rockets red glare, star-spangled, all-American warmongering etc. Nowadays peacekeepers, humanitarian aid, nation building, and bureaucracy are permanent unavoidable realities of war. It's almost like the powers that be are trying to suck all the fun out of combat.The film doesn't take sides in the Baltic conflict, nor does it truly admonish the motivations behind the war itself. No Man's Land is not that small of a movie. No Man's Land attempts and largely succeeds in showing the ridiculous exercise in futility that is war as a whole. Even in today's modern world where things have become more complicated, with leaders bloviating, armchair generals amassing forces through spreadsheets and memos, lazy lieutenants barking orders to their underlings, the actual act of war is ultimately barbaric and immoral. "Neutrality does not exist in the face of murder." says Sergeant Marchand "Doing nothing to stop it is, in fact, choosing. It is not being neutral." With those words Marchand makes the connection many fail to draw on their own, war no matter how justified is still an act of murder. And that is ultimately how No Man's Land finishes its darkly comedic story. It begins with a depiction of war and ends with a (spoiler alert) depiction of murder as the world shrugs in ignorance. For the record, it has been 12 years, 1 month and 2 days since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan which is among a list of approximately 30 continuing armed conflicts all around the world. I say this not to be haughty or controversial but to maintain a larger point. In the ongoing conflict in Israel, 272 Israelis and Palestinians were killed in 2012. By comparison 504 Americans were murdered in Chicago and 386 were killed in Detroit that same year. What that means is if we were to define war by fatalities we have more than a few in our own country. Or to put it more responsibly, we have a lot of murder globally to answer for. Just as the credits in No Man's Land are about to roll, the intrepid reporter we have come to admire is asked if she wants one last shot of the trench. A quote by Albert Einstein goes through my mind every time I watch that particular last scene; "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them! How vile and despicable war seems to me! I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business." Sadly, in the fashion that many of the disaffected would answer, she says "No. A trench is a trench, they're all the same." I guess it's easy to not ruminate over such things when you can just change the channel.

A group of Bosnian reinforcements gets lost in the fog at night. They wake up and get mowed down by the Serbs. Čiki finds himself alone. The Serbs send out an old veteran and newbie Nino to check. They find a body and the grizzled veteran places a bouncing mine under it. Čiki kills the veteran and takes Nino hostage. The body turns out to be Cera who isn't actually dead. The three struggle as the UNPROFOR comes to evacuate whoever is stranded in no man's land. Marchand tries to call in somebody to defuse the mine but his commander Soft insists that they leave immediately. TV reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) hears the exchange on the radio and threatens to shine a light on the ineffective UN.I really like the UN and the black comedy they do. The language barrier is always funny. The ridiculous nature of their work is good for a laugh. I'm not as enamored with the Serb and Bosnian soldiers. It bothers me that they keep not killing each other. It doesn't make any sense that the Bosnian doesn't kill Nino right away. He should kill Nino and try to sneak out during the night. After that, it seems the situation never gets right. I think it would be better to not see how they got into their situation. The movie could start with UN arriving at the checkpoint. There also has to be a better way to make a standoff situation. I wonder if the UN find the two man both stepping on a mine. They can't kill each other because the mines would blow. It would allow them to argue with no holds barred. I don't buy that these guys would take prisoners.