Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

My family has a vested interest in Bosnian culture and history since my wife is a native of Sarajevo and lived through the war as a young girl. Naturally a movie by Bosnians about Bosnia held great interest for us especially when it got accolades as high as it did.
This movie is well made, intriguing, and a good tool for my wife to use to illustrate what she tells me about the war.

A squad of Bosnians has gotten lost in a fog and finds themselves dangerously close to the Serb lines. One of them makes it into a trench between the lines. Two Serb soldiers are sent to investigate. The Serb commander sets a mine under the body of an enemy as a booby trap, but the man turns out to be very much alive. Ciki, who has been hiding since the soldiers entered the trench, gets the best of the Serbs leaving only the rookie alive. Now it’s Ciki versus Nino arguing about who started the war and how the other side fights it, an argument that is won by whomever holds the gun at that particular time. They manage to let both sides know they are alive, but neither man can get back to his line without being shot by the other side, besides which Ciki is not willing to leave his injured friend since they cannot find a way to get him off the mine without blowing them all to pieces and is not willing to let Nino leave since the Serbs are less likely to shoot with one of their own in the target zone. The commanders call in the United Nations, but the ineffectual help they offer only makes things worse.

War movie or not this does not have the battle sequences of Black Hawk Down or Braveheart. No Man’s Land is more dialogue driven, and perhaps its biggest downfall is that if you don’t get into what’s going on the pace will likely be boringly slow.

This movie speaks to many Bosnians deeply. My wife, as well as other Bosnians, tell me I can’t possibly get it in the same way they do. While that may be true to some extent, I still get a lot out of the movie as do many other Americans if its success at Cannes is any indication. It is full of laughs and hope that turns to despair and anger fluctuating between positive and negative always with the pressure of a violent war in the background. Speaking of the mood, the previews I’ve seen make it sound like a much more light-hearted movie than it actually is. It may well make you laugh at times, but it is NOT a feel-good movie.

I think No Man’s Land and Shot Through the Heart make excellent companions since they look at the war from different angles. STTH shows Sarajevo before the war, the start of the war, and its effects on the citizens and streets of the city. NML begins further into the conflict, deals mostly with soldiers, and looks at the politics particularly concerning the U.N. I appreciated NML more because of knowing a bit about the situation already. One thing you won’t see in either movie, since neither progresses that far, is that the U.N. failed to bring peace, the U.S. military finally did that. Thanks to our efforts Sarajevo is now a city rebuilding much of its scarred beauty. It may sound like I’m bragging, and maybe I am a little, but knowing the UN’s ultimate failure there will add more weight to the events of the movie since perhaps this is a look at WHY they failed.

Content:
The worst thing is the language. It’s quite bad. There is some violence but it is not gory. There is no nudity or sex at all.

DVD:
When I saw the quality of the cover art and heard the acclaim for the movie I had high hopes for the DVD. As far as presentation of the movie this release is good, but in pretty much all other ways it’s not.

Video is a good looking anamorphic 2.35 widescreen. Audio is a nice 5.1 surround. Chapters are well placed. There is no English dub, though, so if you don’t like reading subtitles you may not be keen on seeing this movie. The language is Serbo-Croatian (AKA Bosnian) with English and other subtitles.

I prefer the original language to an English dub so that’s not a big deal to me. My disappointment is that there are no extras (other than a trailer that doesn’t do the movie justice). A documentary about the war or just some notes from the director would have been great. Having talked to the director’s nephew I can say with certainty that this was a labor of love for Tanovic so I doubt it would have taken much to get him involved with creating additional materials for the DVD.

Despite the lack of features I think highly of this movie and think it well worth seeing at least once. I give it 4* even though the DVD could have been better.

If you’re interested in Bosnia you might want to check out

24 Season 1
Behind Enemy Lines


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age