Rhapsodies

This week I watched movies satirizing the madness of war. In both of these movies  I want to emphasize the difference between satire and flat-out parody since while both of these movies had its share of gallows humor, your amusement is not the creators’ first priority.

I started by watching Jean-Luc Godard’s Les Carabiniers. Les Carabiniers tells the story of two poor men, Ulysses (Marino Mase) and Michelangelo (Albert Juross) who are seduced into joining the army. Not out of patriotism but with promises of anything they could possibly want and do and get away with it. They are encouraged by their wives, Venus and Cleopatra (Catherine Ribeiro and Genevieve Galea) who want to cash in on these rewards as well.

From there we watch their exploits as they commit war crime after war crime and atrocity after atrocity while enjoying every bit of it. This is all framed by the postcards they send home to their girlfriends. This can only last for how long. 

My opinion about Godard’s work is mixed at best. And I won’t say this movie is even close to being one of my favorites of his. One critique I read after watching this film said the viewer is not supposed to like this movie because war is bad and it Goddard believes that all anti-war films,  despite the message their message still make War seems attractive in a perverse sort of way. This is an opinion I have heard from many critics, but this explanation, at least as an excuse

The next film on my list Danis Tanovi?’s No Man’s Land. It the middle of the Bosnian War and a Bosnian patrol get lost in the fog only to discover that they had walked into no man’s land where they’re immediately slaughtered by an entrenched Serbians. Only one, Ciki (Branko ?uri? ) survives out of sheer luck falling into a small trench. The Serbians send soldiers to investigate a veteran and an extremely green rookie named Nimo (Rene Bitorajac ). Along with checking for survivors, the older soldier takes the opportunity to rig some of the corpses with bouncer mines. However gets Ciki drop on them, killing the older soldier and soon it is just him and Vino taking turns who are each other’s prisoner, stuck in the trench together not able to get out of the trench lest they add insult to injury it turns out the corpse who is rigged with explosives wasn’t quite dead. 

The best way to describe No Man’s Land is kind of like Enemy Mine. Except instead of being trapped in the middle of nowhere, they’re trapped where everyone knows where they are and can’t do anything about it… and they have press coverage. 

This is a comedy at it’s darkest showing the banality of war with everybody out of their depth bogged down by the chain of command. Neither the Bosnian or the Serbian care, the UN troops on the ground care but can’t do anything and their commanders aren’t letting them try and finally the army of journalists who may or may not care, but their producers are more interested in milking it for all the “human interest“ that they can get.