No Man's Land

In the last 2 years I've watched tons of very good series and films on arte.tv. Some of them were excellent and would have well deserved a post, but I did not find the time, save for Les Papillons Noirs. 2 months ago I watched another series, very different but as exciting and gorgeous as that one, I'm talking about No Man's Land.

The fight of the Kurdish people against 2 hideous Islamist and Fascist organizations, ISIS and the Turkish state is a topic that really touches me. After the YPG/YPJ had managed to defeat the ISIS monster in a demonstration of honor and courage that seems so alien to this century, when in 2018 Erdogan launched his assault against Afrin I almost cried of anger and hatred.

I have to admit that in these last years I've been quite disconnected from what's been happening in Rojava/Northern Syria, as we, Europeans, are involved in our own war against Islamists, decolonialists, anti-western ideologists and their native collaborators/woke lunatics (with La France Insoumise in France being the biggest example of a gathering of all our enemies). Maybe it's also that the situation of the Kurdish people being abandoned and betrayed by all other nations and massacred by the Turkish scum had turned so unbearable that I just prefered not to know.

So when I came across a French/Belgian/Isreli series revolving around the Kurdish struggle in 2014 I felt immediately attracted. These were the "good times" when the Kurds were fighting only against ISIS (of course Turkey was supporting ISIS, but in a partially covered way, not the all out war that they declared to the Kurds later) and it seemed possible that they would manage to get the Freedom and the State that this People deserve so much.

The story is mesmerizing. Spoiler warningThere's more to it than this, but the essential part of the story is that of a young French archeologist that because of odd life circunstances (one love, one execution, one family broke up) ends up aiding the Iranian resistence against the Theocratic Iranian State, with the Mossad pulling the strings without her knowledge. After a failure she will end up fighting along the Kurdish YPJ against the ISIS monster, as a form of redemption and catharsis for someone that no longer has anything to lose. That's enough, you just have to find this series and watch it.

The actress playing that role, Mélanie Thierry makes such an amazing interpretation. Apart from being one of the most beautiful women on Earth, the way she conveys all the pain and despair that she has so inside is just amazing.