I've been waiting for this film for something like four months. Thank god it didn't disappoint.

First, so you know: No Man's Land is a Bosnian war movie, yes, but much of it does involve a good deal of comedy, usually relying on the absurdity of what war really is. If you could not stand the humor elements of Three Kings, you should probably stay the hell away from this one. Though you'll be robbing yourself of a thought-provoking and extremely well-crafted flick.

No Man's Land takes place at the center of the Bosnian/Serbian conflict, and if that shies you away because you know little or nothing about said conflict (like myself), fear not. All that you really need to know for the reality of the film is laid out. Through a series of events too complicated to explain (and it's a better joy to watch them unfold anyway), both a Bosnian and a Serb find themselves stuck in a trench between both sides' lines, in the titular No Man's Land. To add to the shenanigans, another Serbian lays in the trench with them -- perfectly healthy, but on top of a pressure-sensitive mine. Being on it is fine, but if he moves himself off... everyone's dead.

Not too long after, the UN catches wind of this particularly unique situation, and through the manipulation of one UN sergeant who protests the idea of neutrality in such a brutal war, and an english journalist, decide to get involved. The UN comes off (not surprisingly) like an All-Star Team -- soldiers wear the fatigues of their various countries, matching blue helmets (I've never heard of UN troops referred to as "Smurfs," and damn is it funny), terminally lacking anything resembling validity. They are troops apparently assigned to sit around and watch people die.

This interesting premise is the setup for a film that peers into the psychology of hate-driven war and the mentality behind peacekeepers who don't even know the native language of the country they inhabit. The two soldiers, trapped together, snipe at each other (sometimes literally) and exchange little in basic human pleasantries. They know little of their own motivations, or of which side is the 'evil' one -- they fight because they're told, and with the conviction only career soldiers have. They fight because it's all they have. They fight because they know no other way to live. The man on the mine, perhaps close enough to death to know what really matters, acts as their voice of reason. When they're all looking death in the face, why withhold cigarettes from the other guy, even if he's your sworn enemy?

The movie loses a touch of focus when the peculiar center of the movie reaches outward; suddenly a film focused almost claustrophobically on one trench stretches out to a UN outpost, UN headquarters, and via the media, London. Watching the chain of command in action, watching the reporters alternate between a special kind of freedom fighter and simple misery vultures -- all necessary to make their points, but they detract from the fascinating little microcosm of the three troops stuck in the trench.

What I really did like about the movie was that it treaded dangerously close to stepping into cliché territory, and avoided it. It would have been easy enough for the movie to wander into story-swapping territory; the three soldiers swapping stories about their kids or wives or whatever, overcoming basic human stubbornness to act like some kind of We Are the World miniverse. Easy, too, it would have been to make the media either all righteous or all evil. The soldiers are not fast friends, and indeed, they never really become friends. They are automatons in their cause, struggling futilely to take a good, solid look at the world around them.

It's no great stretch to say that war is ugly, brutal, absurd, and in at times funny, as the ultimate in gallows humor. Indeed, No Man's Land would be the ultimate exercise in trite criticism if it were made by, say, an American or a Brit, but NML is a Bosnian film, and this fact alone is enough to fuel the storyline and the feelings behind them with authenticity no outsider could ever match. What we end up with is a searing portrait of the futility of pacifism, the face of ethnic cleansing, and a glimpse of ultimate European sophistication. And despite this sophistication (the queerly heartwarming sight of an english journalist, french sergeant, and german mine expert working together being the most poignant), one thing remains quite clear. We are an ugly species, us humans, and nothing we're doing now will change that.