Written by: JBR
"There is no army left to be vanquished' - Josef Stalin
War is like a double edged sword. One side is full of fright and death. The other side is full of drama and entertainment. In countries like Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine, Bosnia, Kosovo and Srilanka that have been shattered by internal wars, wars are like ambassadors of death. To watch these war footages on CNN, BBC and films like '300,' it is a matter of entertainment. So war means two totally diverse things.
What is severe in wars is the internal fight between brothers. What is even more horrific than the Indian struggle for independence is the fight between Hindus and Muslims. We still see it happening in Kashmir. In an internal war, the UN and Peace Keeping Corps are just onlookers. They cannot do much, so in the guise of helping, all they do is hide behind a curtain of arranging peace talks.
'No Man's Land' by Bosnian director Danis Tanovic brings out this reality in a shocking expose.
Bosnian and Serbian warriors clash in war. Bosnian soldier Ciki gets stranded on a spot that belongs to neither Bosnia nor Serbia. Two Serbian soldiers are sent to keep a watch on Bosnian soldiers. They come to the place where Ciki is and he goes into hiding.
The elder of the two Serbian soldiers, places a landmine under the dead body of a Bosnian soldier, so when Bosnian soldiers come to recover their wounded/dead, they will be blown up. After placing the landmine, there is a scuffle between them and Ciki, in which the elder soldier is shot and killed. The younger soldier Nino is captured by Ciki.
This is a bad situation for them both. The trench in which they are hiding has the Serbian force on one side and the Bosnian force on the other. Coming out would mean sure death. In this horrendous situation, Ciki abuses Nino verbally at gun point. At one point, Nino gets the gun and the situation is reversed. Ciki is now verbally assaulted at gun point by Nino.
The two soldiers who have no personal enmity are caught in a hateful situation, clashing at the jaws of death, and the arising comedy combined with violent tension has been beautifully portrayed by Tanovic. As they trade insults, it is clear that both of them go to a lady who resides in a small Bosnian village. That brings them to more verbal clashes.
While Ciki and Nino are thus engaged in fighting with each other, they come to realize that the soldier Cera under whose body the elder Serbian soldier had placed the landmine was not dead at all, but seriously wounded and lying in the jaws of death.
Ciki tells Nino to remove the landmine from under his fellow soldier Cera's body. But Nino does not know the technicalities. Now the situation takes a serious turn. They cannot leave Cera as he is, not can they remove the landmine from under him. If Cera moves, the landmine will blast off and all 3 of them would die. Cera is like a living booby trap.
Tanovic has depicted this delicate situation beautifully in the film through Cera's plight, about how war affects both sides.
In another scene in the film, Ciki and Nino both remove their battle clothes in the trench where they are hiding and come out waving a white cloth in their hands. Both the Serb army as well as Bosnian army hesitates to shoot because the soldiers being in civilian clothes, they do not know who is the Serbian and who is the Bosnian. More than anything, this brings out the depth of hatred as well as its ridiculous facet.
The UN force comes to rescue the 3 soldiers who are caught in No Man's land. A German tries to defuse the landmine, but is unable to. The film ends with Cera still lying on the landmine with no more hope of salvation.
In this film, Tanovic shows how the UN protection force is generally unable to do much in a war. In the climax of the film, the scene shows Serbian soldiers kidnap young Bosnian soldiers from the UN camp and killing them. In 'No Man's Land,' one can also see how TV channels like CNN and the UN forces have ego clashes, how media uses war and war affected people for exclusive news items with no respect for the emotional and physical wounds of the affected people.
One can go on listing the salient points in Tanovic's film. It won the Oscar award for best foreign film category in 2001.
'No Man's Land' is different from the usual run of the mill Hollywood film and one must see this remarkable film at least once.
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-14.05.2007
