Released
2001
Runtime
98
Category
Language
Director
Actors
No Man's Land
What's it About
After a blistering field-artillery salvo, two soldiers – Bosnian Chiki (Djuric) and Serb Nino (Bitorajac) – find themselves marooned in a trench together while another combatant lies atop a land mine that, if moved or jostled, will blow them to bits. Meanwhile, British journalist Jane Livingstone (Cartlidge) and U.N. peacekeepers observe their harrowing plight from a distance.
Why we love it
This dark, satiric Serbo-Croatian film won the 2001 Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Built around the tense standoff between Chiki and Nino, we view their bizarre predicament not just as two enemies who must help each other to survive, but also through the eyes of impotent U.N. representatives on the scene, and, of course, the omnipresent media. By turns bleak, frightening, and funny, "No Man's Land" is an ingenious piece of work, as it delivers yet another new and original slant on war's futility.