Bosnian Director’s ‘No Man’s Land’ Battles Futility With Humor

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. His exceptional debut feature, “No Man’s Land,” 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.

Part of what makes “No Man’s Land” so effective is a take-no-prisoners sense of humor that is characteristically Balkan.

It’s a sensibility that knows that the distance between a joke and death can be a matter of seconds, that has the wit to come out with the following definition: “A pessimist is someone who thinks things can’t get any worse. An optimist is someone who thinks they can.”

“No Man’s Land” took the prize for best screenplay at Cannes and the recent European film awards, and it’s an especially deserved one. 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.

Although its characters often find themselves in a metaphorical fog, “No Man’s Land” begins in an actual one that engulfs a Bosnian relief squad headed for the front. The men needle each other--”With you, even drinking coffee is risky”--and in fact things do not go as planned. Full daylight finds Ciki (Branko Djuric), a soldier who wears a T-shirt with the Rolling Stones tongue logo as part of his uniform, alone in a trench between enemy lines. Not sure exactly what is happening in that trench, Serbian officers send two soldiers to investigate, a veteran with a liking for Bouncing Betty-type spring mines and an inexperienced newcomer named Nino (Rene Bitorajac).

Events conspire to create a kind of face-off between Ciki and Nino, two basically decent men who, it turns out, once dated the same woman but now torment each other every chance they get because they happen to be on opposing sides of a pointless war. Frantic, skittish, mistrustful, each accuses the other of acting badly, causing atrocities, starting the war itself.

Inevitably, this confusion comes to the attention of UNPROFOR, the U.N.’s military force, derogatorily known locally as “the Smurfs” because of their little white armored vehicles and blue helmets and their penchant for inaction and ineptitude. And where UNPROFOR goes, journalists, typified by the Global News Service’s Jane Livingstone (Katrin Carlidge), are not far behind.

Tanovic’s film, though it never preaches, is energized by its fury at the multiple idiocies and futilities of this particular war, which has trapped people in a completely senseless situation. And though Tanovic is a native of Sarajevo who ran the Bosnian army’s film archive, he is careful to avoid finger-pointing and special pleading. In a situation where everyone acts badly, including the U.N. and the self-serving media, “No Man’s Land” doesn’t spare its wrath and makes sure that no party unfairly takes a hit.

Tanovic’s anger also never gets in the way of his willingness to mix humor with tragedy: A Bosnian soldier gives a somber moan while reading the newspaper and exclaims, “What a mess in Rwanda.” One of the film’s amusing running jokes is the laughable inability of anyone to speak the language of the French U.N. peacekeepers. Still, ridiculous as the situation is, Tanovic never lets us forget that the fatalities involved are uncomfortably real and close at hand.

There’s an invaluable feeling of authenticity that runs through “No Man’s Land” because of the wartime traumas of its cast and crew. According to media reports, star Djuric told a Toronto Film Festival news conference, “I have an advantage over Mr. Tom Hanks and the other guys who play in American war movies because I have experienced war myself. I know how it feels when a grenade explodes near you or when a sniper hits the person next to you. I don’t have to act. I just remember.”

*

MPAA rating: R, for violence and language. Times guidelines: intense, adult situations and frequent violence.

‘No Man’s Land’

Branko Djuric...Ciki

Rene Bitorajac...Nino

Filip Sovagovic...Cera

Georges Siatidis...Marchand

Serge-Henri Valcke... Dubois

A Noe Productions production, in co-production with Fabrica Cinema, Man’s Films, Counihan Villiers Productions, Studio Maj/Casablanca, released by United Artists. Director Danis Tanovic. Producers Frederique Dumas-Zajdela, Marc Baschet, Cedomir Kolar. Screenplay Danis Tanovic. Cinematographer Walther Vanden Ende. Editor Francesca Calvelli. Costume design Zvonka Makuc. Music Danis Tanovic. Production design Dusko Milavec. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes.

Exclusively at the Landmark Cecchi Gori Fine Arts, 8556 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills, (310) 652-1330.