Kingdom of Heaven - Director's Cut
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i saw the film's exposure of inefficiency and cynicism of the u.n. peacekeepers as a disendorsement of their function.
A disendorsement of their function as neutral, mostly hands off peacekeepers.
what politicians made of u.n. ineptitude is a different matter,
The propaganda that saw the US intervene in Bosnia precedes Tanović's movie. The critique of the UN as inactive, buerocrarised, ineffectual and most of all lacking in moral courage was a mayor part of that propaganda effort. It is not be a coincidence Tanović and pro-interventionists told the same story. Tanović took their fable and put it on film.
surely not the fault of the director. tanovic' anti-war credentials, to my mind, were boosted in his 2009 film, triage.
The director has stated his views on the war in Bosnia in interviews, his views do not differ from the views of the wartime Sarajavo government.
The movie engages in a great deal of acrobatics to set up a situation in which the call for the UN to do something is to the advantage of both the Muslims and the Serbs and there really isn't any reason not to call for the help. In reality to secure for itself a foreign intervention had been the strategy of the Sarajevo government for winning the war and bringing the Serbs to heel since day one of the conflict. In No Man's Land the call for the intervention isn't a strategy of one to the warring sides to win the war, but the cry out of all the sensible people on the scene.
The movie is critical of the UNPROFOR, but never from the point of view of wether they have a right to be there in the first place. You can view the movie as being about three people in a trench if you like, but it is obviously trying to be more than that. Despite this the situation is set up in such a way that there is no reason not to intervene, as the intervention can not possibly make things worse, it can only help or be ineffectual and do nothing.
The movie is eager to give voice to the derision for UNPROFOR troops as "smurfs", but is clever enough not to explain where the bitterness came from. Among the Bosnian Muslims derision for the 'blue helmets' came from a sense of entitlement, a belief they as righteous victims were owed an intervention on their behalf by the international community, which was therefore shirking in their obligation to them. It was more than just laughter at stumbling foreign clowns. The blue helmets were worth-nothing "smurfs" because they did not all out fight the Serbs on their behalf as was their duty.
Skillfully the movie avoids placing any of the interventionist propaganda in the mouth of any of the locals. The only person grilling the UN is a foreign journalist. When compared with reality this makes her position stronger. In reality the pro-intervention advocate journalists were indistinguishable from mouth pieces of the Sarajevo government. They worked together, shared sympathies and echoed each other's allegations about the Serb and the Croat sides. In the movie the advocate journalist is working alone, has come to her conclusions on her own and is a force for good - independently of anyone placing pressure on the UN. The movie even has the Bosnian Muslim soldier show hostility towards her and further the disconnect.
No doubt Tanović considers himself as being against war, but No Man's Land is only antiwar in the sense of 'what a horrible little war, you have an obligation to help and we don't mean the half-assed UN smurfs, there is no neutrality in the face of murder, blah, blah, blah...'
to marko:
thanks for your well-articulated and convincing reply. tanovic' acrobatics obviously went straight over my head, not being especially well-informed on the balkan conflict. in real life, i'd figured out that the holbrooke, cook and albright were in the bad guys' camp. i guess the director was probably too subtle for me to pick up his pro-intervention message.
I like Full Metal Jacket
“Since people are concerned that ‘X’ will not be provided, ‘X’ will naturally be provided by those who are concerned by its absence.""The sweetest of minds can harbor the harshest of men.”
http://voluntaryistreader.wordpress.org
Letters from Iwo Jima and Apocalypse Now.
I also second apocalypse now
Das Boot
Always a fan of military history, I grew up watching a lot of WWII movies and of course began with an almost comic book image of the war. We Americans and British were the good guys and the Germans and Japanese were the bad guys and it was good to kill them. Then when I was about 11 or 12 my dad borrowed Das Boot from the library and for the first time I was hit in the face with the thought that there might be good and bad people on both sides. I found myself feeling sorry for the German sailors and wanting to see them make it home to their families. Life in the u-boat was spent just trying to do their job and survive, with the Nazis' lofty rhetoric on the radio offering them no comfort. It gave a human face to the enemy which we are often taught to hate and kill. Lots of good anti-war movies out there, but I picked this one because it was the first one to teach me that war isn't always black and white.
Come and See