Review of No Man's Land (1987) by Armonda. — 29 May 2007
This is a darkly comic version of ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, and viewers tend to ask whether its political even-handedness doesn't cause it to suffer from the same fault that plagued the old classic.
To many veterans and students of "The Great War", it is wrong-headed to portray the German soldiers so sympathetically, even though many of them were indeed just poor slobs doing the dirty work of the Kaiser and his privileged court.
At the screening of No Man's Land in my house, our guest was a young diplomat from Croatia who gave us insight into the mutual contribution of the Serbs and Croats to the shooting war in Bosnia. The latter country became a surrogate battleground for other breakaway Yugoslav provinces whose interests were defined by their ex-patriots living abroad.
In truth there was no clear victim-villain situation, which makes the dark cynicism of the auteur more in keeping with the facts than one might think.
This review of No Man's Land (1987) was written by Armonda. on 29 May 2007.
No Man's Land has generally received mixed reviews.
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