Strike one: it’s about the infuriating complexities of war-torn Yugoslavia. Strike two: it often plays more like dramatic theater than a movie. Strike three: it’s depressing as hell. Plus, there’s the part you already knew: it’s a foreign film so, yeah, it’s in another language. Three languages, actually-Serbo-Croatian, French and English.
Fortunately, writer-director Danis Tanovic also knows how dreary it sounds-which may explain why his movie is, in fact, downright riveting. The 32-year-old Bosnian lived through years of brutal fighting in Sarajevo and, in person, his voice is so startlingly deep it takes effort not to be intimidated. He doesn’t seem, at first, like very much fun. But the more Tanovic talks, the less of a surprise it is that “No Man’s Land”-the story of two soldiers, a Bosnian and a Serb, trapped in a bunker with a wounded man lying atop an active land mine-is such a fast, bitterly funny little gem. Like every American Gen-X boy, Tanovic (pronounced TAH-no-vitch), who now lives in Paris with his wife and baby daughter, was reared on Spielberg and “Star Wars.” “We had the same films as you,” he says. “We just got them a few months later.” His favorite Hollywood movie in recent memory? “The Matrix.” “I can’t wait for the second part,” he gushes. Sitting down for lunch at a sawdust-on-the-floor Greenwich Village dive, Tanovic calls out to the waiter, “Two burgers, two Cokes!” He smiles. “See, now I’m an American.”
Well, not exactly. As funny as “No Man’s Land” often is, it seethes with the kind of anger no American, not even the most politically engaged, could genuinely muster. U.S. moviegoers will no doubt make connections between the tangle of Tanovic’s Yugoslavia and our own war in Afghanistan. It’s an interpretation that Tanovic welcomes, if only because it draws them into the world he’s always known. “I know things have changed for you since 11th of September,” he says, “but frankly they didn’t change for me. I think the world was sick place even before that.”
NEWSWEEK: You joined the army in 1992? After studying film at university?
Danis Tanovic: There was no army. I mean, c’mon! It was a mess. I went to the police station house and said, “What can I do?” We were five guys patrolling with one gun. And we were all waiting for the guy with the gun to fall down so we could take it. I was a soldier for two years. But I took up camera rather quickly. Seven days after I joined I started filming [the war] because no one was filming it. For a while I had a camera and a gun. Finally I just had a grenade. It was for me if [the Serbian Army] captured me.
If guns were so hard to come by, where’d you get a camera from?
Well, the first one … [Tanovic pauses and smiles] we robbed from our film school. Because it was closed. Everything was closed. We returned it later. I told them I stole it for a good reason, and they understood. And hey, if they didn’t understand, I had a gun [laughs]. Don’t write that!
How old were you when you left Sarajevo?
I was 25. Two years on front lines of war was more than enough. I was sick and tired. I had to sneak out. I got out in a jeep of English fighter pilots, just hiding in the back. I passed three checkpoints, but they didn’t look. It was risky. I don’t know what they would’ve done if they caught me.
Before “No Man’s Land” you were a documentary filmmaker?
I wanted to do fictional films forever, but I started [out] doing documentaries because I saw that life [itself] was a better screenwriter than I could ever be. I remember going to a government office this one time and there was a guy who spoke only Bosnian. But nobody else did. So the Bosnian guy-I don’t know why-he cursed in Chinese. And an American guy turned and answered him in Chinese. So a Bosnian guy was talking to an American in Chinese. An American guy was talking to a Flemish guy in English. And then this Flemish guy was translating for a girl who was French, and she would type up everything. These things happen all the time in real life.
How long did it take you to write “No Man’s Land”?
Fourteen days. I shot it in 36 days. I cut it in 12. And I made music in two.
Does that mean you’re working nonstop?
No, not nonstop. But I go to sleep and I dream of my script. I swear to you. I see the scenes, and I see what works.
You got a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival-and those folks aren’t exactly known for being warm.
In that moment, I was looking at my mother who was crying. I was just wondering if she was going to have a heart attack. I was so happy. When I left Sarajevo, I said to my mother, “Mom, I’m leaving because I want to become a film director. And I don’t think I will be able to do it here.” So, what can be better than a 10-minute standing ovation at the biggest festival in the world?
Still, you’ve said the Sarajevo Film Festival meant the most to you.
Yes. It’s the toughest public I’m going to get. They know everything about every little detail. I can’t lie to them. I can lie to you, I can lie to Japan, I can lie to Brazil. But I can’t lie to them.
Here in America, every review of “No Man’s Land” and every story about it will connect it to September 11.
I was talking about my film with an American guy [at the Toronto Film Festival just prior to September 11] and I said to him, “The difference between you and me is that you think you’re safe from what happens in the world. That’s what I thought one night before war started in Sarajevo.” I saw that he didn’t believe me. And then two days later-a day after September 11-he sent me an e-mail saying, “I don’t know what to say.” Well, there is nothing to say. Now you know.
How did you think America was going to respond to what happened?
I was scared. I don’t like your president. He behaves more like John Wayne than like a diplomat. He says in Kyoto, “F-k you.” Then he says to U.N., “F-k you, too.” He says that to everybody. He didn’t even know who the f-k was president of Pakistan when they asked him. And now they are like best pals. Life made him change certain things, but he’s not a great leader. Your president is like the strongest member of a gang. He can’t let the littlest one get beaten. Like you don’t want the world to be neutral to what happened on September 11, you can’t be neutral to what’s happening in the rest of the world.
In this country, people feel strongly about losing American lives to clean up messes in other parts of the world.
Oh, like Mogadishu? Please! Why do you behave toward your soldiers like they’re ballet dancers? They are soldiers, for God’s sake. If you don’t want to be a soldier, go and be a bank assistant, whatever. I’m sick and tired of this no-causalities attitude. Which no casualties? You just bombed Afghanistan and you killed hundreds of innocent people and it didn’t stop you. There is no “someone else’s fight.” You can say you don’t give a shit. But don’t say you’re neutral.
OK, enough politics, let’s get back to movies. Have your tastes changed since you became a filmmaker?
I like everything-I don’t care if it’s Hollywood or Bollywood. But this year I can’t say [there was] one film I really liked. You know, the last thing I really, really liked from Hollywood was “The Matrix.” Such a smart film. I like “Bridget Jones’s Diary.” It was cute. But I wouldn’t put it in my top five … hundred [laughs]. What a terrible year. That’s why you should say about “No Man’s Land” in the headline, “Best Film I Saw This Year!”
Well, it’s pretty close. It’s certainly in my top 500.
Ha! It’s number 499, right? Gee, thanks, I like you, too!
