No Man's Land

Year: 2001

Actors: Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge

Duration: 98 min

A Bosnian patrol gets lost in the evening fog and has no sense of their location. They sleep during the night and when the fog lifts in the morning, they find they are less than a 100 meters away from a Serbian trench, guarded by a heavy tank. The Serbs open fire and kill almost everyone in the patrol. 2 Bosnian dive into a trench in the middle of the no man's land. Serbian officer (Bogdan Diklic) sends 2 volunteers to inspect the middle trench. Nino was a new addition to the Serb trench and the oldies didn't want to work with him. Nino is picked alongside Older Serbian soldier (Mustafa Nadarevic). Meanwhile the Bosnian trench also informs their HQ and awaits instructions.Meanwhile Bosnian Ciki regains consciousness in the middle trench and tries to find a way back to his own lines. But the middle trench is very exposed and lined with booby traps. There is no easy way out. When Nino and older soldier reach the middle trench, Ciki hides from them. The Serbs find another wounded Bosnian and they proceed to install a land mine underneath him. If anyone moves the body now, they will all be blown to bits. This is when Ciki comes out of hiding and attacks. The older Bosnian is killed and Nino is badly injured. Ciki runs out of bullets.Two wounded soldiers, a Bosniak Ciki (Branko Duric) and a Bosnian Serb Nino (Rene Bitorajac) are caught between their lines in the no man's land, in a struggle for survival. The two soldiers confront each other in a trench (Nino is new and doesn't know the way out of the middle trench. He doesn't know the position of mines in the surrounding field and was simply following his older colleague), where they wait for dark. Ciki makes Nino strip down to his boxers, and walk outside the trench with a white flag in his hands, hoping for a rescue from either side. Both sides witness this, but cant confirm identity of the soldier, and thus open artillery fire on the middle trench. They trade insults and even find some common ground.Confounding the situation is another wounded Bosniak soldier Cera (Filip Sovagovic) who wakes from unconsciousness. A land mine had been buried beneath him by the Bosnian Serbs; should he make any move, it would be fatal. Ciki asks Nino to defuse the mine, but he doesn't know how to. At first Ciki has the gun on Nino. But then Nino captures the gun and has Ciki on target. Cera traps Nino and allows Ciki to get a gun for himself and now Nino and Ciki are even. Both strip down to their boxers and Ciki gestures to the Bosnian side, while Nino gestures to the Serb side for a rescue. Both sides call for the UNPROFOR.A French sergeant Marchand (Georges Siatidis), of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR), gets involved in effort to help the three trapped soldiers, despite initial orders to the contrary by high command. The high command had asked him not to do anything, but Marchand was sick and tired of standing by and not doing anything to stop the killing or to save lives. UNPROFOR's mission in Bosnia was to guard the humanitarian aid convoys, to remain neutral and act as a mere bystander. Captain Dubois (Serge-Henri Valcke) is Marchand's CO and he calls HQ for instructions. Colonel Soft (Simon Callow) is clear that UN forces cannot act without the approval of the UNGA and refuses to authorize any attempt to save 2 unknown people, when it is not clear if they are even soldiers.Marchand reaches the middle trench and finds out that Cera is lying on top of a bouncing mine and cannot be moved. Marchand calls his CO to send a mine expert, but is ordered to withdraw instead. Marchand offers to take Ciki and Nino. Ciki wont leave Cera alone and he wont allow Nino to leave either. Luckily, an English reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) arrives at a Bosnian barricade from which Marchand was passing through on his way back, bringing media pressure to bear that moves the United Nations high command to swing into action to try to save the soldiers. Marchand explains the situation to Livingstone (who was monitoring military frequencies in the area and already knew what was going on), who speaks directly with Dubois. Livingstone files a live news report on TV and builds pressure on the UN forces to do something. This forces Dubois to send Marchand back to the middle trench this time with a mine expert. Marchand also brings the press teams with him, who are allowed to stay outside the trench and film the proceedings.A row between the stressed out and fatigued Ciki and Nino gradually escalates even after being rescued. Eventually, Ciki shoots Nino and is in turn shot by a Peacekeeper. Meanwhile, it is found that the mine cannot be defused. The UNPROFOR high command tries to save face: they lie, saying that Cera has been saved and they leave the area, along with the reporters and everyone else.In reality, Cera is left alone and desolate in the trenches, still immobilized by the mine. Meanwhile, the UNPROFOR commander has arranged false information to be passed to both Bosnian and Serb troops, to make them believe their enemies will be trying to reoccupy the trench at night (which each side would try to counter with an artillery barrage that presumably will kill Cera and obliterate the evidence).

Genre: Action   Comedy   Drama   War