Movie: No Man’s Land –Ničija zemlja (2001)

No man’s land is the area between enemy forces facing each other in a stalemate during a war, and as a general rule, no one enters no man’s land. This movie is set sometime in the Bosnian War between 1992 and 1995. It depicts half a day that includes two Bosnian soldiers that wander into the no man’s land between the trenches of the battling Serbian and Bosnian armies and are shot by the Serbian army; a Serbian soldier who is wounded in no man’s land while investigating; French sergeant Marchand of the UN forces who goes in to rescue these now three seriously wounded soldiers; a German soldier of the UN forces with a specialty in bombs who goes in to help the sergeant; and a female British reporter named Livingstone trying to get a scoop.

A novice Serbian soldier Nino along with another old soldier are given a dangerous mission by a superior officer to look into what looks like an invasion of the no man’s land by Bosnian soldiers, while the superior officer stays in a safe place. The old soldier thinks that the Bosnian soldier Cera who fell down in no man’s land is dead, and attaches a land mine under his body. The land mine is set to explode if a comrade of the Bosnian solder lifts his body. However, the old soldier is killed by another Bosnian soldier Čiki, who had been injured and hiding secretly, and Nino becomes injured. A struggle between the three people stuck in the trench—Cera who couldn’t move because of the land mine, and Čiki and Nino who are injured—inevitably ensues.

Čiki and Nino are enemies in the war, but they speak the same language, lived in the same town when there was peace, and have a mutual acquaintance. Their faces light up spontaneously when they talk about the woman they know in common. The two are trying to defeat each other and somehow escape from the trench, but when the other is in trouble, they unexpectedly show gentle sympathy towards each other.

This movie does not depict the background of the Bosnian War, but, by depicting concrete and typical individuals, this movie attempts to depict the essence of war—not only the Bosnian War—in an abstract way. At first in the trench, Čiki thinks the Serbian side started the war while Nino thinks the Bosnian side did, and they blame each other, but gradually they both start having doubts about their reasons for fighting each other, who started the war, and why they have to obey orders. Sergeant Marchand believes that the mission of a neutral UN officer is to, instead of doing nothing, help injured soldiers as much as possible, but his superior officer, who gives him orders from a distant and safe place, is indifferent and doesn’t wish to get involved in the situation. The reporter Livingstone believes it is her mission as a reporter to tell the world what is happening on the battlefield, and at the same time, is feverish in her ambition to get a scoop on the current situation that nobody else has; thus, she approaches the trench at the risk of danger. Her TV station coworkers in Great Britain receiving her footage ask of her, “Give us more juicy coverage”; when they watch the footage of the real life-and-death struggle between Čiki and Nino in the trench, though, they are stunned. When the footage of Livingstone and her crew reaches a global audience, the UN forces have to do damage control. In the end, the victims of politics are the soldiers on the front. Sergeant Marchand gazes sadly at his superior when the officer lies and leaves.

This movie depicts the different standpoints of Čiki, Nino, Cera, Sergeant Marchand, and the reporter Livingstone from the same distance so that the audience can feel sympathy for everyone. The question isn’t which side—Bosnia or Serbia—is the bad guy. One after another, moments of understanding appear—first between the soldiers of opposing armies, then between the neutral UN forces and journalist—and then disappear. This movie makes the audience pray, “I wish everyone stops fighting and can return home safely!!!” Against the audience’s prayer, the movie’s conclusion is too cruel and sad. However, the reality of the Bosnian War does not permit a simple happy ending. A simple happy ending would not honor the soldiers who were involved or died in the war. By watching this sad ending, the audience will certainly wish more deeply for peace. Such is the power of this movie.

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Movie: Nowhere in Africa — Nirgendwo in Afrika (2001)

In 1938, Regina—a Jewish girl living in Germany—goes with her mother Jettel to Kenya, a territory of Great Britain at that time, to escape Nazi persecution and join her father Walter who had already moved there. Walter was a lawyer in Germany, but he now lives in a poor house and works within the unfamiliar realm of agriculture as a farm manager of some land owned by a British colonist. Regina befriends Owuor, the family cook, and adapts to life in Kenya in no time, but Jettel can’t accept the reality and complains to her husband, so Jettel and Walter argue often. In 1939, Britain and Germany finally start fighting; Walter’s family is sent to an internment camp and Walter is fired from his job as a farm manager because he and his family are people of an enemy nation. However, the Jews in Kenya persuade the British government that the Jews being persecuted by the Nazis are not the enemy of Britain, and in the end the Jews are released from internment camps.

Regina and Jettel are sent to a high-class hotel in Nairobi being used as an internment camp; German women sent there receive top-class hospitality. I think such a thing happened because in Kenya during those days, white people and native people lived in different areas, and a white woman even of an enemy nation couldn’t be sent to a place where native people stayed; this situation suggests that Kenya had a hidden apartheid in those days.

With the help of a British officer who favors the beautiful Jettel, Walter is able to find a new British employer and his family moves to the farm. Owuor also moves with them and begins a new life under better conditions. Walter is allowed to volunteer as a British soldier, and participates in the war despite Jettel’s objection. Regina starts studying at a boarding school for Britons. While Walter is at war, Jettel starts enthusiastically working at the new farm, and Walter becomes suspicious that Jettel may have a relationship with one of his close friends, Süsskind. In fact, Süsskind was courting Jettel.

The war ends with a victory for Britain. Since Walter served in the British army, he can return to his home country as a veteran, and he receives an offer from Germany to work as a judge. While Walter wishes to return to his home country, Jettel insists on staying in Africa. The movie ends with the two making their decisions.

This movie offers an interesting point of view on how one chooses their homeland during war and when faced with racial persecution; it is a pretty good movie, but some viewers may be puzzled by and feel uncomfortable with how Jettel is depicted. When she first arrives in Kenya, she shouts at Walter, “I’d rather die than live in such a place!” Walter criticizes her attitude of looking down on Owuor, saying, “Your attitude toward Owuor is like that of a Nazi toward a Jew.” She complains that, “It is unbelievable that we can’t eat meat,” but when Walter reluctantly shoots a deer in response to this, Jettel reproaches him with, “You killed an animal!” Although she seems to hate Kenya so much, when Walter is allowed to return home and he suggests to her that they help rebuild their home country, she refuses to go saying, “The country that killed our family cannot be trusted.” However, when she learns that she is pregnant, she agrees to return home, saying that, “The people in this country are scary.” Also, wherever she goes, she is aware that she attracts the attention of men, and her daughter Regina actually sees her mother’s affair.

The inconsistency in Jettel’s personality in this movie is caused by there being three points of view: one from the eye of the original author Stefanie Zweig as a child (depicted by Regina in the movie); another from the eye of the adult Stefanie Zweig through her autobiographical writing about becoming an adult; and the last from the director Caroline Link when making the book into a movie.

It is not that Stefanie Zweig disliked her mother, but in the original autobiography, she always recollects her as something like a spoiled Jewish princess. Growing up, Zweig’s character formation was influenced by her father (Walter) who always faced life’s challenges with a positive attitude, her cook (Owuor) who had unlimited love, and the British boarding school she went to.

In the movie, the father Walter is performed by the handsome young actor Merab Ninidze, who was born in Georgia—a former Soviet Union territory—and immigrated to Austria. Stefanie Zweig extensively stated in an interview, “I was surprised because Merab looked just like my father. His physical features and the strong and ardent way of living looking forward despite having sorrow and nostalgia in his heart are exactly like my father. He has an Eastern German accent and speaks the same German as my father.” On the other hand, she simply said that the actress who played her mother “was nothing like” her mother, and she did not talk about what kind of person her mother was.

In regards to Owuor, Zweig stated that the reason she wrote her autobiography was to record the wonderful and generous person who was the model for Owuor. Although in the movie Jettel dramatically says, “I will protect the farm,” when Walter tells her, “Live in Nairobi during my military service,” it seems that Zweig’s mother actually moved to Nairobi while her father went to the battlefield. Unlike the movie, it seems that the cook left his hometown and moved to Nairobi with the mother to take care of her.

For the little girl Regina, her father and mother are such a constant part of her life, like the sun or the earth, that she would never even consider there being any story to tell about the relationship between her parents. However, director Caroline Link made this movie as a love story. Merab Ninidze who performed Walter stated the following: “One day, the director reprimanded me, saying, ‘Wrong, this movie is a love story!’ From then, I understood the interpretation of this movie and decided how to perform this role.”

In other words, Merab Ninidze at first interpreted this movie to be more political. However, Caroline Link’s intention was to reconstruct the movie to be, “a drama that depicts a princess like Jettel, who is raised by an affluent Jewish family, becoming an independent woman on African land, while mixing in some elements of a love story.” This angle is a big shift from the point of view of a little girl who open-mindedly accepts African land for what it is and enjoys her life there. The shift of the main focus to Jettel, with the intention of projecting the director’s philosophy on female independence and love relationships onto Jettel, results in the inconsistency in her character in the movie.

When I read Stefanie Zweig’s writings, it was interesting to see what various circumstances were not depicted in the movie. When asked why Jews didn’t escape Germany, Zweig suggested that it is possible that many Jews were not able to gather the large amount of money needed in those days to leave the country. There is no strong reason that her father escaped to Kenya, but rather it was likely because entry to the country cost only 50 pounds per person, Nairobi has a strong Jewish community, and Kenya is a relatively safe place.

In Kenya, the father started his new job as a middle manager within the colonial governing system already established, and didn’t have to start from scratch. In other words, he held a middle management position in the white, British organization of the colony. It is understandable for Jettel to want to remain in Kenya—as long as there is work on the farm—since income and social status are guaranteed, she can have servants, and her work is supervising the native laborers as part of the ruling class. But as for Walter, it is understandable that, rather than living out his days as an untalented farm manger in Kenya, he would want to make use of his talents in his home country. Or maybe Walter, who had the insight to predict the fate of Jews living in Germany, was able to perceive the nationalistic independence movement that was about to sweep over the peaceful and gentle Kenya.

Stefanie Zweig’s father did not have the option to immigrate to America, the Land of the Free. It is said that, since he couldn’t speak English and was over 40 years old, it was impossible for him to come to America and make a living as a lawyer, so he decided to rebuild his life in his home country Germany, no matter how difficult. He never forgot to thank Kenya, which gave him the gift of life.

The criteria one uses to choose what country to live in as their home country are, first, a country where one’s life is secure; then, an environment where one can make use of their own talents, has control of their surroundings, is surrounded by their beloved family, and can understand the language, and where the food one likes is readily available. How lucky Japanese people are to be able to choose Japan—which satisfies all of these criteria—as their home country! There are many people in the world who do not get to choose where to call home.

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