Green Border Resonates

 

 

 

Green Border (2024)

Directed by Agnieszka Holland

Kino Films, 152 minutes, Not rated

In Polish, Arabic, French, English

★★★★★

 

Does this sound familiar? A group of immigrants hope for asylum and better lives. After great difficulty and payoffs to third parties they arrive full of hope, only to find themselves stopped at the border. They sneak across, are arrested, sent back, and cross again, and again, and….

 

This time, though, we’re talking about the Belarus/ Poland border and instead of Latinos, Afghans, Syrians, Moroccans, and Somalians are involved. Each are so many pawns in a wretched geopolitical struggle between a nation still locked into the Soviet bloc–Belarus under the autocrat Alexsandr Lukashenko–and Poland, whose Border Guard hasn’t gotten the message that the Iron Curtain has fallen. The Guardian has called Green Border an “angry and urgent masterpiece,” and I concur.

 

The film is mostly in black and white, but the title derives from the opening aerial shot of what looks like a tableau of meadows and sylvan forest. The latter, though, is actually a thicky wooded and treacherous landscape filled with marshes, hidden ponds, and unfriendly guards. Green Border is told in four “chapters,” the first of which shows Afghanis filled with hope and planning to join a relative in Sweden. That hope is dashed after they land in Minsk and board a van for Poland. The van is stopped at the border, where Belarussian soldiers force everyone to get out. They run through the bleak landscape toward Poland. We follow an Afghani teacher Leila (Behi DjanatiAtai) and an extended Muslim family headed by Mohamad Al Rashdi. His son Bashir (Jalal Altawil) tries to guide his wife and their children through the woods, but imagine their sorrow when the Border Guard rounds them up, drives back to the border, and in the dark of night, cut through the razor wire and force them back into Belarus. They are detained in an improvised outdoor holding area. Days later, Belarusian troops drive them to the Polish border and reverse the process. What ensues is a nightmarish game of déjà vu. Imagine literally tossing a pregnant woman over a concertina fence.

 

Chapter two takes us inside the Border Guards via Janek (Tomas Wlosok), a father-to-be. His is the classic dilemma of job versus morality. As rumors fly of the brutality of Polish guards, his wife badgers him to quit the guard. Jan, though, feels deep comradery with fellow troops and sees himself as protecting Poland. He tells his wife the immigrants are “bullets," not people. (Shades of the dehumanization of Mexican “criminals.”) Will Jan ever understand that there is little difference between the Polish and Belarusian soldiers? One might have thought Poles, who were brutally targeted by the Nazis, would remember that orders do not excuse inhumane acts.

 

In a bold stroke director Agnieszka Holland turns her attention to the humanitarian workers. They are caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. They are allowed to operate, as long as they break no laws! The can provide medical field treatment and give advice, but they cannot transport them or direct them to sanctuaries. They do such things, of course, but they risk arrest and imprisonment if they do. (Do  you recall American directives making it illegal to give immigrants any water?)

 

The final chapter follows Julia (Maja Ostaszewska), a Polish psychologist, who is willing to take direct action. One beautiful scene shows a group of smuggled African youngsters rapping the same song with the son of a Polish sanctuary family. If this doesn’t drive home common humanity, schedule a heart transplant. But, again, people like Julia literally put their lives and dignity in jeopardy.

 

Green Border has caused an uproar in Poland that only subsided a bit when Poland allowed over a million Ukrainians to immigrate. Many Poles remain outraged, though, and have accused Holland of slandering the military. One angry official said only “pigs” go to the movies, a deliberately provocative inference with fascist overtones, and a London Times reviewer called it “misery porn.” Poles also review bombed sites to drive down audience ratings and make it seem as if Green Border is a bad movie no one should see.

 

That’s rubbish. It pulls at your heartstrings, but not in made-up ways. It could well be the most important film you can watch in 2025. It’s available on numerous streaming platforms.

 

Rob Weir