“No Man’s Land”, 2001

Rarely has a movie knocked me on my ass quite like this one.

Set in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the civil war in 1993, it follows two enemy soldiers, Ciki and Nino, who become trapped together in a trench between battle lines. Ciki’s friend has been booby trapped by Nino’s side, the Serbs: he is laying on a bouncing bomb, which will explode if he moves, and Nino can’t disarm it. The two enemies must watch over him until help comes in the form of UN troops—if it does come.

Branko Djuric, who plays Ciki, was incredibly easy to watch. He has a sort of dangerous innocence, and his mobile facial expressions add almost a second dialogue to his part. I found it difficult to look away from the screen, and not just because the movie’s in subtitles—I didn’t want to miss one moment of the nonverbal interaction of the actors.

“No Man’s Land” won Bosnia an Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Director Danis Tanovic takes a well-used plot device—enemies thrown together in unexpected intimacy—and a simple stage-set backdrop, and transcends them both with a vengeance. The film drops violence, humor, satire, horror, and pathos, with no warning, building in the viewer a raw and incredible emotion.

The characters are extremely human in a way that stings. The shots are close up; you feel trapped right there with them. No punches will be pulled; but you’re alive enough to take them.

Many reviewers of this movie focus on its portrayal of the absurdities of war, with the two soldiers as symbols of the entire Yugoslav conflict. It affected me more directly—I saw it as a reflection of the ridiculousness of interpersonal hatreds, of how arbitrary and yet intractable they can be.

But the best aspect of the movie is that it avoids the tendency of a typical war film to either shy away into abstraction and analysis, or numb itself with bloodspill and spectacle. Here, themes take a backseat to reality, just as in life. The bullets are less important than the pain, both emotional and physical, that they cause. Movies like “No Man’s Land” are mirrors, showing us a vital humanity that we all have, dangerously, in common.

First real iTouch post

I’d written a post on my friend’s iTouch back on Inauguration Day, just to see what I thought. Would the touch keyboard be totally obnoxious? Would the whole thing feel like a bulky, or conversely flimsy, POS? I knew I needed something of the sort—I had no PDA at all, and only an older, used Nano in my car for portable music fun. But I wasn’t going to spend $400 without trying one out. I was surprised back in January, by how much I loved the little thing. And the wait since then, as I slowly accumulated the money to buy one (thanks financial aid!), has only made this post sweeter to type.

This is one amazing hunk of plastic and glass.

I’ve got it in a simple leather flip case with a magnetic closure. As it will be in one of the pockets in The Purse Of Doom, I felt that a substantial screen cover would be wise. The only downside to this type of case is that it is slightly attention-consuming to use any letters or scroll bars near the edges, as the leather cover buts right up against them. Thumb-typers shouldn’t have that problem, but I’ve always been the hunt-and-peck sort, and my index fingers sometimes brush the leather when I type “P” or “Q”. The upside is that the iTouch saves my ass with an autocorrect feature. It will also add a period and a space when you double click the space bar, which is nice.

The first app I bought was Rejeweled, and I’m embarrassed to report that I spent about four hours playing it yesterday. Today was a bit more productive—I got a number of work apps, including the WordPress app that I’m using right now, which works like a charm.

I had to get “Don’t Panic” engraved on the back. Douglas Adams was my personal religion’s prophet. All these toys I grew up reading about in SF books and watching on futuristic shows—”Star Trek”‘s communicators, Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide—we now have ‘em. Call me a nerd, but I can’t wait to see what we do with them once the novelty wears off and people start pushing their limits.

A lot of times, I miss the boat technologically when it comes to the new toys. I tend to milk whatever tech I’ve got until it’s on it’s last legs. That’s how I wound up with a five-and-a-half-year-old Powerbook G4, no upgrades ever, running Panther. Why do I do it? I don’t know. I suppose because, despite all my hot air to the contrary, I’m really not that self-indulgent when it comes to buying myself things. Product of my upbringing: make things last. It feels ridiculous to buy things that I don’t absolutely need to survive—but that’s no way to live.

One of the things that most strongly reinforces my desire to live is being reminded that I don’t have to settle for just surviving. Would you laugh if I confessed that my new toy helps?

New vintage Converse…

I had a pair that I bought from the Converse outlet in Ft. Walton Beach in 1994, but they were lost in a car accident in 1999. They were completely written on-a shoe version of a junior and senior-year diary.

I’ve wanted a pair to replace them since then, but I won’t settle for the clunky knockoffs CT sells now. Thank god for eBay.

photo uploaded to Flickr by the catalyst…