No Man's Land, Bosnia

No Man’s Land, a film by Danis Tanovic, shows the Balkan conflict in a different light from movies like Underground. While both sides, Serbian and Balkan, are portrayed in their most violent states, there appears a much larger, imposing critique of the global community’s involvement in the conflict.

The film critiques how the global community responded to and treated the participants of the Balkan conflict. The soldiers, Nino (Serbian), Ciki (Bosnian), and Cera (Bosnian), are stuck in a trench together, and nothing can be done by global forces but look into the trench, see the people fighting, and occasionally try to preserve a non-existent peace. From these actions, the global community is portrayed as being above the soldiers in the conflict. This idea is further reinforced by camera angles, where the members of the UNPROFOR and the global news media are portrayed as either looking down upon the trench or being looked up to from the trench.

A more significant and more negatively critical portrayal comes from Cera’s predicament. He is trapped on a mine that will ultimately (we presume) lead to his demise. The first critique comes from the creation of such an inhumane weapon as this. It is foreign made (in the EU), which suggests that members of the European Union cannot be totally absolved of the conflict in the Balkans. Furthering this involvement, though, is the UN’s inability to help resolve Cera’s situation and their hiding of the real magnitude of it. They cannot defuse their own mine, and because of this ineptitude and lack of foresight, they choose to hide their shame by evacuating a false body, while leaving the real person in the trench to die. Despite Cera’s nationality, he embodies the innocent people of the Balkan region who the outside world first allowed to be put into a compromising position, later could not help solve it, and ultimately lead to their death.

No Man’s Land, through these portrayals takes a very local, personal conflict, and reinforces the global involvement that did nothing to help the situation.