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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While many war movies depict the soldiers who fought, people who died, and hard-fought victories, this movie depicts those who survived the Bosnian War and the children who were born during it.

During the Bosnian War—through events such as the Srebrenica massacre that occurred in 1995—the Serb army carried out a strategic “ethnic cleansing” where Bosnian Muslim men were killed and women were raped and forced to bear children. The original title “Grbavica” refers to the district in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, in which the ethnic cleansing occurred.

Esma, a single mother, lives in this district with her only daughter Sara, who is 12 years old. Sara’s grade is going on a field trip, and when the teacher tells the kids that those who lost their fathers in the war get to go free of charge and those whose fathers were injured have their fee reduced, the eyes light up in the kids who have such fathers. Because Sara was told by her mother that her father died honorably in battle, she requests her father’s death certificate in order to go on the trip for free, but Esma makes up a variety of excuses and doesn’t show her the death certificate. Esma barely makes ends meet with compensation money and sewing, but also adds on a night shift as a waitress at a nightclub to earn money for Sara’s trip fees.

A man working as a bouncer and driver at this nightclub remembers Esma from when they had met while he was searching for the corpse of his father at a war morgue. Esma had also been looking for the corpse of her father there in the morgue. The man grows to like Esma. When Esma reluctantly accepts an invitation to go on a date, she finds out that this man is educated, studied economics in college, and still has a desire to study. However, he mutters that he would not be able to handle the rigorous college life anymore because he currently is living without passion and discipline; and besides there aren’t good jobs in the current situation of society, even if one graduates from college. As for Esma, before the war started, she was a medical student and was working hard to become a doctor. If not for the war, these two would’ve met as elite, possibly as a doctor and a government official, and the two of them could have built a happy home.

Sara, at the height of a rebellious age, cruelly fights against her mother who does not talk about the father. She says to her mom, “You’ll leave me,” and also, “Mom, promise me you won’t get married.” After all, though, she is an ordinary girl, delights in playing with friends, and becomes close with and tenderly cares for another boy who has no father and is living more nihilistically than herself. After Esma manages to pay the cost of the school trip with a loan, Sara questions her intensely about where her father’s death certificate is.

One day, the bouncer comes to visit Esma. Since he gained permission, he plans to immigrate to Austria. At that time, Esma’s response was not, “Are you leaving me?” or not, “I wish you happiness,” but rather, “And who will identify your father’s body if you leave?” Sara, frustrated that her mother just sadly lets this man leave, points the handgun she borrowed from her friend and threatens Esma, “Tell me about my father!” Parting with this man, her difficult relationship with Sara, economic struggles, and an unforgettable past all combine at this moment for Esma and explode; Esma then tells Sara that she is a child born from the rape by an enemy soldier.

Innumerable cruel things occurred during the Bosnian War. How does one convey these to the world and to the next generation? If someone just presents cruel events one after another, it would be a documentary. If someone presents who the bad guy is, who the victim is, and what to do to bring them to justice, it would be propaganda. However, in order to make a good movie as a form of art, it must have hope in it. The past is unalterable and the future could take any direction, so what art can do in this situation is present hope.

This movie is sad, but there is hope. This hope could be short-lived and it may vanish at the end of a tiring day, but at least there is hope. When Sara asks her mother what part of her looks like her father, Esma finally answers that Sara’s hair color was the only thing she had in common with the father who had raped Esma. After Sara learns the truth about her father, she sobs profusely and shaves her own head. On the morning of the trip, Sara hesitantly waves to her mother from the bus, while Esma smilingly waves back. Esma at first hated her baby and continued to while it was in her belly, but while breast-feeding after the birth, she accepted the baby and was determined to raise Sara. And the greatest salvation is that this movie doesn’t call the enemy “Serbs.” The movie says that the people who slaughtered and raped the Muslims of Bosnia were Chetniks (the derogatory term for Serbs who believed in the Greater Serbia ideology, fought alongside the Nazis against Tito in the past, and gathered up an anti-Muslim force in Bosnia for the Bosnian War), and never says that all Serbs are the enemy of Bosnians. The past is unalterable. However, the people involved in the making of this movie may have wanted to say that hope doesn’t come from thoughts like, “Serbs did this and that, and so they are evil.”

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Angelina Jolie—Hollywood actress and ambassador for UNHCR, an agency that deals with refugees in the United Nations—directed her first movie; this movie set in Bosnia is a melodrama depicting the fates of two lovers—a commanding officer of the Serb army, and a Muslim and Bosniak woman—during the Bosnian War. I hear this movie will premier in Japan in 2013.

I personally like and admire actress Angelina Jolie because she always donates a lot of money to refugees or people suffering in natural disasters, and her contribution to the education of Middle Eastern women and promotion of foster parent organizations was courageous. However, I don’t have much admiration for this movie. I want to summarize my thoughts below.

First of all, English was used for this movie. This movie was largely distributed in America where people may find subtitles to be annoying. Although the actors in the movie all spoke English very well, I would’ve liked to hear Bosnian or Serbian spoken instead. I feel this reduces the authenticity of the movie.

This movie is after all a Hollywood movie. As is expected, the actress playing the protagonist begins by wearing a skirt and sweater, but gradually more skin is exposed and when she is in the hideout of her lover, the Serb commanding officer, she is wearing a dress that looks like something Angelina Jolie would wear on the red carpet… What? Isn’t this character a Muslim woman? From where would she have procured such a stunning, Western-style dress? This actress also resembles Angelina Jolie in her appearance. The actors in this movie are instructed in the Hollywood way of expressing emotion, such as throwing something when angry.

This movie portrays Serbs very one-dimensionally as scoundrels. The historical background setting up to the war is not described. One after another, cruel scenes are shown (such as the raping of a Bosniak by a Serb soldier, or a Serb soldier using a Bosniak woman as a human shield as he shoots at a Bosniak soldier). Bosniak soldiers are portrayed virtuously, but Serb soldiers are always portrayed as ugly and they laugh when they are killing their enemy. The Bosian War started because both the Bosniaks and the Serbs felt they were in danger, and both sides insisted that the other side started the war. However, this movie depicts the Serbs as the obvious bad guy. The cruel scenes serve as proof of this. I think the Hollywood movie method is to feed the audience a clear good guy and bad guy in a situation even though the conflict is very complicated.

Angelina Jolie visits countries all over the world as a goodwill ambassador. I think this movie was based on an impression she gained when she visited Bosnia-Herzegovina, and she wanted justice by conveying what she witnessed herself to the world. She was very shaken by the Serb army’s ethnic cleansing in the area of Bosniaks by not only murder, but systematic rape. Even though the Bosnian War was very complicated, it was very brave and difficult for her as a young foreigner to make this movie. When making this, she may have thought, “I don’t know anything about Bosnia, but because I know about love, I want to depict the Bosnian War with love as the main principal.” In short, this movie appears to be the story of a man and a woman who may have happily had a family if not for this war changing their fates.

However, is there true love between these two? Danijel, the Serb man, and Ajla, the Bosniak woman met just once before the war started and liked each other. Danijel doesn’t know what kind of person Ajla is or what she does. When the war begins, Ajla is taken with other Bosiak women by the Serb army and nearly raped, but the commanding officer of the soldiers that took the women is Danijel and he says to a soldier, “You’ve had enough fun,” and stops him from raping Ajla. Danijel is the son of the highest commanding officer of the Serb army. Danijel tells his subordinates that Ajla is his property and doesn’t let her get raped. On top of that, Danijel helps her escape. However, Ajla comes back to Danijel’s unit as a spy. She is given her own giant room and is brought food every day by Danijel. Danijel gets very angry and kills a subordinate when he discovers the soldier had raped Ajla under the orders of Danijel’s father; also, Danijel tells Ajla military secrets. When I watch Danijel, I get irritated and think, “Whatever the reason for war, why can’t you be responsible for your home country and your men?” In the end, Danijel discovers that Ajla is a spy; he then shoots her and surrenders himself to the UN troops by saying, “I am a war criminal.”

Although the Bosnian War looked like a civil war, the United Nations decided to intervene because the ongoing racial extermination was a crime against humanity. However, is it the best ending for Angelina Jolie to have Danijel declare himself a war criminal at the end? I wonder how the audience reacts to the one-sided blame on the Serbs in this movie. Not all Serbs are murderers and many were not aware of the massive killings being performed. Some short lines in the movie say not all Serbs are bad people, but this is lost among the endless images of brutality within this movie.

Also in this movie, Danijel’s father briefly tells the history of his time as a commissioned Serbian officer and the sad history of his nation, but he speaks in quite a monotone as if reading from a history textbook so his words regretfully do not stay in the audience’s heart.

The Balkan Peninsula was under Turkey’s control, but by the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire declined and in 1875, the Russo-Turkish War began over this land between Turkey and Russia. After the war, through support from Great Britain who was uneasy about Russia’s policies going south, Austria strengthened their control over Bosnia and Herzegovina and in 1908, Bosnia and Herzegovina were incorporated into Austria. However, Serbia, neighboring Bosnia and Herzegovina, had the intention to expand as part of the Greater Serbia movement, and so opposed Austria for this land. This became the cause of World War I.

After World War I, because of Austria’s defeat, Serbia became the core of the Serb-Croat-Slav Empire in the Balkan Peninsula and absorbed Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, during World War II, Nazi Germany used Croatia as a puppet government to take over the Balkan Peninsula and Serbs were suppressed. By means of the Croatian nationalist organization Ustaše, Serbs were persecuted along with Jews and any anti-establishment groups, and were taken to concentration camps to be murdered. Faced with this, the Chetniks, a Serb nationalist organization, was formed and it stirred up an anti-Croatia movement.

After World War II, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was established in the Balkan Peninsula, their charismatic leader Tito able to form alliances between many ethnicities. During this time, there was little tension between ethnicities and in urban areas, many different ethnicities lived together and marriages tied them together. Yugoslavia was different from other satellite countries of the Soviet Union; movies criticizing the regime were not banned there, and in 1984 they hosted the Sarajevo Winter Olympics. But ethnic conflict resumed after the collapse of the Soviet Union when various countries within Yugoslavia declared independence in 1990. The Bosniaks and the Croatians living within the Bosnian region wanted to be independent from Yugoslavia, which was dominated by Serbs, while the Serbs in that region wanted to remain under Yugoslavia; this was the beginning of the Bosnian War. Later, a dispute between Croatians and Bosniaks started and began a three-way war.

In 1994, there was a military intervention by the United States of America and NATO; in 1995, the war ended after the signing of the Dayton Accords, the peace agreement mediated by the United Nations. In order for this movie to be accurate, Angelina Jolie was said to have asked for the details in the movie to be reviewed by Richard Holbrooke, the Assistant Secretary of State of Clinton’s administration who worked on the Dayton Accords; she also asked other diplomats involved in these negotiation efforts and reporters who covered the Bosnian War. Richard Holbrooke under Obama’s administration was appointed as the special envoy in charge settling the Afghanistan/Pakistan conflict, but in 2010, he became sick and died as a special envoy in office before the completion of this movie.

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