No Man’s Land (2001) – 8.5/10

I hate that the Oscars has a “best foreign language film” category.  It’s just so totally unnecessary.  A film is a film is a film.  A good film is better than a bad film.  It is inconsequential what language a film is in, and it’s a depressing thing that the film output from the entire non-english speaking rest of the world gets summed up into a category with one winner, and it’s even more depressing that that winner will just not be seen by many people.  In 2001, there was a big exception.  One foreign language film made a massive splash, and is still mentioned to this day as a real classic.  That film was Amelie, and in the Oscars, Amelie was beaten by “No Man’s Land”, which is largely ignored by everyone.  But I’m delighted to say that I think they got this right.  Amelie was an excellent film, and yet so was this.  This is one of the sharpest views on the futility of war that I’ve ever seen. 

It takes place like a stage play (which I believe it was), nearly all contained in the claustrophobic atmosphere of a trench in no man’s land, between opposing sides taking part in the Bosnian war between the Bosniaks and the Bosnian Serbs.  Due to bad weather and a series of events, two soldiers, one from each side, end up in the same trench, along with several dead ones.  One of the dead soldiers, having had a booby trap mine placed under his  body to kill any comrades that come to clear up the bodies, makes things more complicated by not actually being dead and merely unconscious.  He is stopped from moving as that would kill him and everyone else.  The other two undergo some kind of uneasy truce while sorting out what is best to do.  The absurdity of war is shown in that they know some of the same people, and would probably find things they agreed on if they weren’t sworn to kill each other.  The United Nations get involved, and TV crews, and it just all comes together so cleverly, so sadly, and yet so humorously, that I would recommend it to anyone to see.  It’s clever, it’s human, and it’s really quite an excellent film.

The Hurt Locker (2008) – 7.5/10

Known forever as the film that stopped the juggernaut that is Avatar, this was judged “Best Film” at the 2010 Oscars.  While I preferred Inglourious Basterds, and even District 9 and Avatar, this is a good film that manages to feature the Iraq war without bothering to focus on whether the people should be there or not.  It’s probably by avoiding that thorny issue that it became possible for it to win the Oscar, as a lot of voters would have been turned off depending on which side of the debate the film fell.  This, however,  is not bothered about whether they should be there.  They are there, and that’s that.  The soldiers have more to worry about than the reasons for the war.  They face a daily battle to stay alive. 

This battle is rarely to do with gunfire – their chances of becoming just another statistic in the war are mainly down to bombs, which they have to try and defuse, often with someone hiding nearby hoping for the chance to detonate the bomb when it might cause most damage to the American troops.  This sort of thing is good for film tension, obviously, although I generally felt less tension than I think I was supposed to.  I guess because Jeremy Renner, playing Sergeant First Class William James, was the star of the show, top billed, and clearly the maverick doing things his own way, on the edge, and was always the guy doing the defusing, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t about to get blown up any time soon, or the movie would stop. 

While I would have liked more tension, it was still quite an involving watch, although I thought the best bit of the entire film was the only non-bomb segment, where they get involved in a firefight with a sniper.  It reminded me slightly of the sniper section in Full Metal Jacket (where, again, I thought it was a better segment of film than the more celebrated training camp.  Maybe I’m just “into” sniper battles!)  There’s other good set scenes, including one where a man comes before them with a bomb strapped to himself, pleading for help.  The crew must decide, and gamble their lives on their decision, whether he is a suicide bomber wanting to get them close before killing himself, or whether he is a civilian in need of help.  You’re treated to the view of a man risking his life by getting close to the guy to examine him, while also pointing a gun at him and threatening to shoot him if he moves unexpectedly.  It’s a hell of a conundrum for the character, and the film manages these scenes well.

Renner was very good, and the film was less annoying than I thought it would be.  I was fully prepared for lots of whooping and hollering and “that’s what I’m talking about” and “USA USA!” chanting and high fives and all of that, and what I saw was a fairly pleasant surprise.  There was a section where they prove how manly they are by punching each other in the stomach.  While the very nature of their daily activity must leave such people with more adrenaline running round their bodies than I could possibly comprehend, and they obviously need to find ways to use that up, this seemed such an utterly moronic activity, I couldn’t help but hope for a ruptured appendix or two.

The film concentrates on the idea of this adrenaline, that people such as James get so used to it, that normal life is utterly unsatisfactory.  You can see the post-coital glow in his post-defusing relaxation, puffing on cigarettes and murmering “That was good!” and it’s contrasted nicely with a spell back in civilian duty, in a supermarket, where his wife asks him to choose which cereal they should eat for the next week.   There are questions raised about people who risk their lives in warfare, where we ponder not just the fates of those who die, but also those who survive, and people like James, who are most content when riding the line in between.