1. wololooo

   9

   In No Man's Land, Danis Tanociv takes a simple premise, and applies it with a huge amount of intelligence and wit. The dialogue is sharp and often hilarious, and watching the Bosnian and Serb soldiers play off each other is one of the highlights of the film. There's a much greater emphasis on narrative and symbolism than cinematography, which is nothing special but gets the job done nicely.
   Tanovic paints a cynical portrait of the UN, questioning their involvement as peacemakers.
   The ending was merciless and not at all what I expected, but nonetheless brilliant. No Man's Land deserved the Oscar for best foreign language picture, and is a stellar debut from Tanovic.… Expand

   • Helpful? 1 of 1 users said Yes.
2. ArmondA.

   9

   This is a darkly comic version of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and viewers tend to ask whether its political even-handedness doesn't cause it to suffer from the same fault that plagued the old classic. To many veterans and students of "The Great War", it is wrong-headed to portray the German soldiers so sympathetically, even though many of them were indeed just poor slobs doing the dirty work of the Kaiser and his privileged court. At the screening of No Man's Land in my house, our guest was a young diplomat from Croatia who gave us insight into the mutual contribution of the Serbs and Croats to the shooting war in Bosnia. The latter country became a surrogate battleground for other breakaway Yugoslav provinces whose interests were defined by their ex-patriots living abroad. In truth there was no clear victim-villain situation, which makes the dark cynicism of the auteur more in keeping with the facts than one might think.… Collapse

   • Helpful? 0 of 0 users said Yes.
3. AmurabiM.

   7

   Absurdist and serious comedy of war. This is an attempt to de-mitify the war at Bosnia, covering it with a plenty of black humor. But I have a complain, why american people think that the war in Balcans was terrible and don´t act at the precise moment? I think this film is overrated because that hypocritical sentiment. It´s the triumph of the political correction over the really significant cinematographic values.… Expand

   • Helpful? 0 of 1 users said Yes.

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