“The situation is extremely complicated.” So says General Dubois approximately midway through Denis Tanovics Oscar-winning Bosnian movie, No Mans Land. And, of course, he is right. At the same time, however, the situation is extremely simple (and sounds, on first hearing, like the beginning of a joke): a Serbian and a Bosnian find themselves trapped in a trench in no mans land. Rene Bitorajac (the baby-faced Serb, Nino) and Branko Djuric (Ciki, the Bosnian Yossarian) battle out their respective sides (“you started the war!”, “no, you started the war!”), secure common ground (they both knew the same girl in Banja Luka) and then retreat to vicious hostilities. It is, if anything, outside forces that complicate the situation: specifically, the convergence of the UNPROFOR (a wonderful sympathetic performance from Georges Siatidis as Sgt Marchand), the media (in the form of Katrin Cartlidge) and the military (Simon Callow very much a stuffy English version of the mayor Mel Brooks played in Blazing Saddles).
The West has little or no understanding of what drives Serbs to kill Bosnians and Bosnians to kill Serbs. Films as diverse as John Moores Behind Enemy Lines and Emir Kusturicas Undergound have attempted to point out that here is combat without historical precedence. Certainly, Tanovic is not the first to draw attention to the anarchic amorality of the ten year conflict (Srdjan Dragojevics Pretty Village, Pretty Flame), is not the first to satirise the British involvement (Jasmin Dizders Beautiful People). And yet it may be that Tanovic is the first to craft a film that is acceptable to Western audiences at the same time as it informs them – in no uncertain terms – keep out, this is no business of yours!
A darkly comic satire on the political and media exploitation of human tragedy set during the Bosnian conflict. Two soldiers - one a Bosnian, one a Serb, find themselves stranded together in a trench along with another soldier who is lying on a spring-loaded mine. The stakes are raised when a journalist gets involved and turns the situation into a media circus. Academy award winner 2002 Best Foreign Language Film.
Uzak 
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No Mans Land
