No Man’s Land is a movie that takes place in the Bosnian War.
Because of circumstances, three men all end up in a ditch in no man’s land. One Bosnian Serb, and two Bosniaks, one of whom is lying on a land mine, in which if he moves, it will explode, and everybody would die. This is, of course, thanks to the Bosnian Serbs.
There’s a whole debacle of getting help. The two sides agree to a cease-fire, while the UN sweeps in to save them. The UN is at first ordered to leave, however, one of the people in charge decides to go back to help them. A bomb unit is called in for the land mine, and the two men not lying on a land mine are taken out of the ditch, but tensions between them are high.
The bomb man, when shown what type of bomb the other guy is laying on says that there is nothing he can do, there is no way to defuse it. While this is going on, the Bosniak and the Bosnian Serb have a shoot out, the Bosniak lands a killing shot, and a UN member shoots the Bosniak for the sake of peace. This all takes place in a few seconds.
As if all of this was not enough, a worldwide news crew is broadcasting the whole thing live. So, to keep face, the two out of the ditch are told to be in not good shape and on their way to hospital. A body is carried past on a stretcher, fully covered by a blanket. It’s told to the news that this is the man that was laying on the bomb, and he is in very not good condition, and will be going to hospital immediately.
Cut to the man still laying in the ditch.
And they just leave him there. In the middle of nowhere, with no food, no water, no shelter, and nobody coming to help him.
It’s ambiguous if he laid there until he died of natural causes, well, as natural a cause can be in his situation, or if at some point, he got up, and let the mine kill him.
He knows his friend is dead, he knows there’s no way to help him, he knows nobody is coming to help him, and he knows he’ll never see his loved ones again. He knows death is the only thing life has left for him. It’s just a matter of when.
For me, the worst thing about all of this is that, given the right circumstances, this could happen. It’s more likely that the ground troops of the UN would either not come to the rescue at all due to the risk or would follow through with the order to retreat.
For many people, no man’s life is valuable enough to lose more.