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Saturday, January 16, 2010

No Man's Land - a movie review

I just finished a movie entitled "No Man's Land" which is set during the Bosnian-Serbian war and I needed to blog about it immediately as it was SO good. This movie won an Academy Award for best foreign film in 2002 and I think you need to watch it.

Three enemy soldiers are trapped in a trench in no man's land. One is lying on a land mine that will explode if he moves. The soldiers manage to have the UN notified of the situation and a French UN sergeant battles with a British colonel (who would rather play chess) to negotiate their safety. But as usual, the UN proves useless because of its own internal problems and it's mandate of neutrality. This movie uses dark humor to portray the absurdity of war, with neither side knowing precisely why they are fighting each other, and with the UN unable to help.

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie. At times I laughed and at times I cried. The movie brought out many emotions and I was quite stressed throughout. I will definitely be thinking about this movie for a long time and I think it is time that I learned a little bit more about this conflict (if you, like me, don't know much about this conflict, the book "The Cellist of Sarajevo" is a good place to start).

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