Green Border
After sanctions were placed on him by the EU for fraudulent elections and human rights abuses, Belarusian dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko retaliated by encouraging refugees from the Middle East and Africa to come to Belarus for easy passage into Europe. Tens of thousands of people fleeing ISIS, the Taliban and other horrors became brutally treated political pawns caught between Belarus and Poland’s “Green Border.”
Laura's Review: A
Cowriter (with Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Lazarkiewicz)/director Agnieszka Holland’s ("Europa Europa," "Spoor") latest is a powerful film damning hew own country with charges of racism and human rights abuses while also highlighting activist groups within willing to undergo prison sentences in order to do the right thing. The film is all the more haunting for director of photography Tomek Naumiuk’s digital b&w documentary style shooting stylized with the gothic horror of tree branches reaching toward the sky like twisted fingers and swamps waiting to swallow the defenseless.
Holland chapters her 152 minute film based on the various perspectives she presents, beginning with ‘The Family,’ a Grandpa (Al Rashi Mohamad) indulging his granddaughter Ghalia (Talia Ajjan), his son Bashir (Jalal Altawil) and wife Amina (Dalia Naous) dealing with a squalling babe while their eldest, son Nur (Taim Ajjan), bargains with his middle-aged neighbor Leïla (Behi Djanati Atai, "Under the Shadow") for her window seat. They are aboard a Turkish airline, all happily en route to what they believe will be their destinations, the Syrian family headed to an uncle in Sweden, Afghani Leila, whose brother fought with Polish soldiers in her home country, seeking asylum there. Upon deplaning, Bashir speaks on the phone, assured the van picking them up has all been paid for and when Leila asks if she may take their extra seat, their agreement will have fateful consequences for all of them.
After what seems like a pleasant car ride, their driver stops and suddenly demands $300. Bashir is shocked, not having the money, but Leila offers 300 Euros. They’re all forced out of the vehicle and told to run, Leila eventually using her phone to discover they are in Poland. They rejoice, but their happiness will be short-lived. As their phones die and food supplies run low, Leila makes her way out into a field where a Polish farmer gifts her water and apples, but when she sees him make a phone call, she flees. Polish border guards will round them up and shove them right back under the barbed wire into Belarus. There they will be treated miserably, a Belarusian soldier demanding 50 Euro for a liter of water only to pour it on the ground. A pregnant Somali woman (Joely Mbundu, "Tori and Lokita") is beaten, as is Nur, then his grandfather, trying to protect him. And then they’re all pushed back across the border back into Poland.
This horrific game will continue as chapter two introduces us to baby faced Polish border guard Jan (Tomasz Wlosok), whose wife Kasia (Malwina Buss) is expecting. A superior tells him and his fellow guards that the people in the woods are ‘Putin’s missiles,’ terrorists and pedophiles who have stolen or bought children to use as tools for sympathy. The refugees are utterly dehumanized, but we begin to see the citizenry push back when Kasia is called out in a supermarket line for her husband’s actions, the aspects of his job he does not tell her about. And that woman in the store is a psychologist, Julia (Maja Ostaszewska, "Schindler's List"), who opens her house near the border to lawyer Marta (Monika Frajczyk) and her fellow activists after responding to a call for help from the woods and sees what happens to Leila once she’s rescued (it is mind blowing). Julia’s compassion will cause her to be strip searched, jailed and have her car vandalized, yet she’ll continue on with Marta’s more radical sister 'Zuku' (Jasmina Polak), engaging former patient Bogdan (Maciej Stuhr) to house African refugees which his family welcomes with open arms. Meanwhile what is left of Bashir’s family sits on a curbside, dirty and begging for help.
There have been many films about the European refugee crisis, but Holland’s is one of the first to call out her countrymen’s selective compassion, noting that while 30,000 duped by Lukashenko have perished being tossed back and forth across the border, millions of Ukrainians have been accepted into Poland, a fact Holland emphasizes by showing many entering with exotic birds, cats and dogs while the others have their things destroyed. Frédéric Vercheval’s violin score adds a somber note to a film that cannot help but make one weep for humanity even as small flickers of hope glimmer.
Robin's Review: A
In 2021, the Belorussian government opened up “refugee tourism,” inviting those fleeing oppression a path to the EU and freedom, This story follows one small group of refugees who spent their life savings for freedom just to become pawns in a political “game” between East and West in “Green Border.”
Agnieszka Holland, la belle director of Polish cinema since the 1970s, gives us a powerful story that works on many levels. First, it is about the group of refugees, a Syrian Family with small children and an Afghani woman who teaches English.
They are the pawns of the story as the small band is rousted by Belorussian soldiers in the middle of the night to make the border crossing. Soon, the Polish border police shuffle then back across the border to Belorussia, beginning a ping pong match between the two countries, Unfortunately, the ping pong balls in this match are people and their plight is harrowing and grabs you by the gut.
Besides the plight of the refugees, shaken down and cruelly treated by those supposed to help them, there are also the Activists – a broad coalition of people who want to help the refugees gain asylum. One, in particular, Julia (Maja Ostaszewska), a psychiatrist, joins the activists in helping the refugees. There is also the point of view of a young Polish border guard, Jan (Tomasz Wlosok), with a very pregnant wife, who is torn by his ordered duty to send the refuges back across the border.
Director (and co-writer) Holland builds a powerful story of spirit, suffering, resilience and hopelessness (tempered with hope). Her cast is solid across the board and the film has a distinct documentary feel that puts the viewer there amongst the players.
Kino Lorber opened "Green Border" in NYC on 6/21/24, expanding to other cities in subsequent months. Click here for play dates. It is being released on blu-ray on 8/2/24.
