Wellington Film Society: No Man's Land

Danis Tanovic, Bosnia-Herzegovina 2001.

This crowd-pleasing black comedy won 2002 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.

A Bosnian Muslim and Serb find themselves stranded in no man's land at the height of the Balkan conflict in 1993. Though neither's a natural born killer, they get inexorably sucked into the spiral of violence - only exacerbated by the self-serving manoeuvres of politicians and press.

“The great Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem tells the story of a Jewish soldier brought up on charges of not firing during a battle. Asked to defend himself, the man says he was ordered to shoot when he saw the enemy. ‘But I never saw the enemy,’ he explains. ‘I just saw people.’ Bosnian writer-director Danis Tanovic has that same gift for seeing humanity where others do not. This exceptional debut feature is a savage comedy about the war in the former Yugoslavia that artfully mixes comic absurdism with a passion for what's right and a concern for the individuality of all concerned.

"Tanovic's script, which he shot in Slovenia, is both complex and simple, mixing a carefully worked-out series of rapidly changing, unexpected events with a thoughtful, philosophical overview. And though it has opportunities to do so, the film refuses to take the easy way out."
- Kenneth Turan, LA Times