No Man's Land

Bosnian Tanovic's taut, witty script is the secret of this film's success in mounting a darkly comic but very suspenseful satirical attack on the absurdity of war. By a cruel twist of fate, three soldiers - two Bosnians, one Serb - find themselves trapped in a trench between lines, with one of the Bosnians wounded and lying on a mine that will explode if he so much as moves; a UN sergeant tries to help him, but repeatedly faces obstacles in the form of his own superiors, the press, and the mutual hatred of the two other solders. The performances are uniformly good, the direction conventionally slick but very efficient. It's Tanovic's ear for dialogue, however, and firm grasp of dramatic structure that impress most as the situation spirals out of control. Admirably, it's pretty even-handed, too.