Political Film Analysis
Introduction
This paper discusses the similarities and differences in two major movies; No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna. It will analyze the similarity in the films about war and show the contras in the storylines, movie setting, and cinematography.
The similarities in the movies No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna
The two movies show the foundational elements of the irony of war. Both No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna have several parallels, including the ‘missing war’ element, with inactive soldiers. The irony arises from the expectation of action, and full anticipation of war-like scenes, only for it to not occur, and the sense of continually waiting is a major factor in both the films’ deconstruction on the concept of war. Across the two films set during the war era, the piecing together of many storylines and scenes eventually is seen as a tangle of distractions, competing motives, non-sequiturs, and counter motives.
Another similarity in both No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna is the presence of many nations and global power. The movies are not concentrated on any single national perspective but are a combination of several fighting countries. The plot on both movies mimics political stories of the conflict they show, advancing from localized and personal incidents to global involvements. The film No Man’s Land presents an account of the French, Bosnian, Belgian, Slovenian, and Italian nations with the intervention of the United Nations, and this is similar to the movie Miracle at St. Anna showing Germany and Italy, with United States’ intervention. Both movies expose existent conflicts of our present times; which is the mediated versus the real and the local versus the global.
Differences between No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna
While both No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna are during the war era, there is a sharp contrast between the two storylines. In No Man’s Land, the story centers on a dispute between two soldiers in a 1993 war who are from opposing sides of the fighting nations and have to deal with each other while in a stalemate. On the other hand, the movie Miracle at St. Anna focuses on four African-American soldiers from the United States army. They are trapped behind the Germany lines in Italy during World War II and have to rely on local villagers in Italy, a young Italian boy, and one another to finish their mission. The movies, therefore, contrast in their time of setting and plot of the story.
Besides, the two movies show a distinctive difference in their genres. No Man’s Land depicts a hybrid of two genres; dark comedy and serious drama on war scenes. It has a feature of dry humor between the protagonists, substituted with the lack of war scenes in the center of an actual war. The movie Miracle at St. Anna contrast in a genre of realism and action, with the four soldiers showing patriotism, optimism about the outcome of the war, and the ironies of being freer as blacks in Europe than in their homeland. It, therefore, shows how the contrasting genres in the two movies.
Conclusion
In analyzing the films No Man’s Land and Miracle at St. Anna, we see that No Man’s Land is a contrast of the movie Miracle at St. Anna. There is a difference in storylines and the setting of the films, although both movies have a common war concept. In my opinion, the movie Miracle at St. Anna has a better storyline with a better depiction of their message and its correlation to the actual world. It has a better combination of sentiment, reality, history, anger, richness, fantasy, life, and violence, despite the deconstruction of the war concept.