Friday, March 23, 2007

Danis Tanović, No Man's Land / Ničija Zemlja (Bosnia, 2001)


No Man's Land is set during the 1993 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Tanović's film is a cynical absurdest representation of humanity which focuses primarily on two enemies of war; plus a man trapped on a mine, an intruding British reporter with hearts for eyes for a UN officer, and the useless French UN officer, among a few other minor characters. The condition of the Bosnian war is acted out in a Beckett-esque minimalist drama ending with unresolved pessimism. The Serbs are represented by a naive soldier, Nino, (played by Rene Bitorajac) and then we have a temperamental macho Čiki, (played by Branko Đurić) to stand in for the Bosniaks. The film begins with a sense of peace. The morning is sunny and the camera collects beautiful shots of the landscape along with little sound or dialogue giving the scene as overall calmness despite of the obvious war environment. We are introduced to the main character Čiki as the camera closes in on his face, as if to personify war.

Čiki and Nino meet in the ditch soon after Čiki shoots Nino's companion for making a game out of endangering a man's life-- the commander drags the body of this man, who turns out to be a dear friend of Čiki, over a jumping mine that detonates once the weight is lifted from it. The man, Cera, turns out to be alive. He wakes up from his unconscious state to discover that he is in the most absurd situation. If he moves ever so slightly in the wrong direction, he and Čiki, who refuses to leave his side, are dead. The animosity begins between the young Serb and the jumpy Čiki because of hasty assumptions about each other's intentions and backgrounds. Čiki assumes that Nino was in on the brutal game but as it turns out, Nino was just an inconsequential alter-boy not even informed of the commander's name. Čiki reveals his cruelty with his response to murder. Killing, to him, is of little value unless it happens to someone on his side of the fence. Killing from Čiki's perspective becomes a performance. Nino's experience with fatal weapons comes out when he shoots the fun by mistake--revealing his attempt to play the part of the army man. Despite of the relatively minimal murder rate (unlike, say, The Red and the White ) Tanović is throughly successful with his representation of war as absurd by nature, worsened by the failures of bureaucracy, and misrepresented in media. The focus on these particular men and their clashing personalities brings about an element of comedy.

The representation of the UN was illuminating. The blue smerfs show up long after Nino and Čiki nearly kill each other. In fact, they only show up after the two men show a little camaraderie (they discover that they both know the same girl). The failure and absurdity of bureaucracy is addressed with the French UN officer who shows up with supplies and food but is given orders to leave the men alone due to some abstract protocol from unnamed higher-ups (his direct supervisor is unwilling to investigate the situation because he has company--a sexy secretary). The comedy builds and builds. The man on the mine alone is absurd enough to laugh at. At one point a German "mine specialist" (the French mine squad was busy) shows up at the request of the UN officer. But since we already know that bureaucracy fails and hope is just a futile rebellion against an oppressive world in this film, it should not come as a surprise that the young "technician" shows up unprepared to detonate this particular type of mine.

The [British] media is another discipline deserving to be mocked. A promising Ms. Jane Livingston is the head reporter. We think she will provide the rest of the world with a window exposing the absurdity, but no. Again, a cynical artist [i.e. Tanović], is guaranteed to shoot down our sense of hope should we dare to have one. Livingston merely adds to the absurdity, since she is pressured by her supervisor to interview Cera, despite the danger, absurdity, and language block, she manages to get in: "Who started it," "How do you feel" and various other irrelevant and humiliating questions. The entire crew arrives oblivious to the danger. The enormous crew is fussing over and surrounding these three men, two of which don't even understand or speak the language that the cameramen need to film. I think it was Nino who brings up Rwanda-- pointing out the nature of the media with its underlying biases and political agendas, since the hype is concentrated around a bully, a boy trying to look tough, and a man laying on a jumping mine whose immediate concern is shitting his pants and listening to the other men's annoying stories -- and not the genocide taking place in Rwanda at that time. But at least we do get to see a little love story opening up between Livingston and the French UN guy before the film closes on its fatalistic note, with the camera looking down on Cera, as it pulls away, suspended on a crane, leaving him hopelessly alone on the mine (cue heavy music and dramatic camera angle to tells us that we should be sad that the character will eventually die; and not laugh as he will be forced to shit in his pants had he not already done so).

[An aside] I did't see how somebody couldn't just have carefully slid a hand under Cera's back to pull the mine out from under him while holding the button down!

[Additionally] I thought stage direction for No Man's Land as a theatrical performance would be interesting to look at, so I found this youtube clip...

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