Stars: Branko Djuric, Simon Callow, Rene Bitorajac, Serge-Henri Valcke, Katrin Cartlidge, Georges Siatidis, Filip Sovagovic

Director: Danis Tanovic

Summary: Chiki, a Bosnian soldier finds himself alone in a trench in no man's land and is witness to two Serbian soldiers setting up a land mine using the body of a dead Bosnian soldier as a 'bait'. If the soldier is moved in any way the mine will explode, this enrages Chiki who kills one of the enemy soldiers and takes the other hostage. A UN peacekeeping unit finally finds the two enemies and then it is discovered that the 'dead' soldier is actually alive...

Dani Tanovic's debut film, about the futility of the Bosnian War, stars Branko Duric as Ciki, a Bosnian soldier with really bad luck. When he and a few other relief soldiers try to join their Bosnian comrades on the front, they get lost in fog, fall asleep, and are awakened at dawn by Serbian gunfire. His comrades are all blown away, but Ciki saves himself by diving into an abandoned trench in no man's land. Nino (Rene Bitorajac), a Serbian soldier, sneaks into the trench and finds Ciki. Though both men are armed and dangerous, they are nonetheless unable to escape the trench without getting shot at by either side. The Unprofor are called in to fix the situation but they only make matters worse. When an English journalist, Jane Livingston (Katrin Cartlidge), gets wind of the story, a media frenzy breaks out across the front.
Tanovic knows his subject matter well as he worked as a war documentarian during the Bosnian conflict. The title of the film, NO MAN'S LAND, is especially fitting given the setting--rolling hills covered with flowers, birds, and insects. The background sound is filled with birds chirping and bugs buzzing, and Tanovic also composed the soundtrack.

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A brilliant take on the tragedy that beset his country, Danis Tanovic's directorial debut No Man's Landis a bleak comedy set during the war in Bosnia. The story begins as a group of Bosnian soldiers emerge from a fog to realise that they have strayed into a thin strip of land unclaimed by either side in the conflict. A bloody sequence of events ensues, which results in a disputed trench being occupied by weathered Bosnian veteran Branko Djuric and his opposite number, Rene Bitorajac's Serbian greenhorn. There's a standoff between them, complicated by Djuric's injured colleague lying atop a "bouncing mine". He's a human booby trap--move him and the everything within 50 yards will be blown sky-high. As the blue-hatted, ineffectual UN are called in, and with the world's media, led by the late Katrin Cartlidge as a rather snotty BBC reporter, swiftly arriving on the scene, this single trench becomes an almost Beckettian metaphor for the war.

Tanovic is not especially concerned with taking sides in the Bosnian-Serb conflict. Whatever its causes, both sides are seen to be as bad, or more accurately as desperate, as each other. That it's hard, for outsiders in particular, to tell who's who much of the time only heightens the irony. There's anger at the media intrusiveness ("Does our misery pay well?" screams Djuric at the reporters), but what's really conveyed is a sense of the absurdity, futility and intractability of war, as summarised in the final image. From the grotesque mess of conflict, Tanovic has fashioned a perfectly judged and beautifully executed movie.

On the DVD:No Man's Landis presented in widescreen with a Dolby 5.1 soundtrack. There are no extras, other than an English language option for the hard of hearing. --David Stubbs

Main Language:	Bosnian
Region:	Region 2
Subtitles:	English
Year:	2001
Release Date:	January 27, 2003
Runtime:	93 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	M P 197 D
Keywords:	Land, War, Subtitled, Wide, Screen, Man's, Bosnian
Genre:	War