neumu [ cinematronic ]




	No Man's Land
	Danis Tanovic Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge 2001 In Serbo-Croatian, French and English; widescreen; full screen; closed caption; English subtitles.		You won't find comedy much darker than the painfully hilarious extremes reached in this smart, scathing story of three men in a trench. Set at the height of the recent Bosnian-Serb conflict, "No Man's Land" takes on the futility, idiocy and dehumanizing effects of a genocidal war predicated on ethnic and religious differences. Two bickering soldiers, one from each side, are pinned down in a trench between enemy lines. The situation is complicated by the presence of a third man, who was knocked unconscious and awakes on top of a spring-loaded land mine that will explode if he moves. A UN team is sent in to rescue the trio, but various protocols begin undermining the mission. With a multinational cast that includes British actors Simon Callow, as a bureaucratic UN commander, and Katrin Cartlidge, as a weary cable-TV news reporter, the film paints no one in black-and-white terms. The guilt is distributed equally, with the media getting a share. Tears of laughter, frustration and sadness commingle.