Green Border Review – Riveting, Compelling, An Unflinching Migrant Crisis Story
- Details
- Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film
- Published on Friday, 03 January 2025 11:51
- Written by Janet Walker
Green Border, from Kino Lober, presents a harrowing tale of the plight of the Syrian refugees, during the civil war, when many tried to flee ISIS and seek asylum in Poland, and other European Union countries.
The film begins on the plane with a group of refugees, who have all made travel plans and arrangements, with family or others. The family the film centers on has an elderly grandfather, three children, two under ten, and one infant, and both parents. Their relative in Sweden, has made all the travel arrangements. We see the phone conversation, where he gives them explicit instructions, and explains everything in detail. A van is to pick them up at the Belarus airport and take them to Poland, where they will be transported to Sweden, a single woman, asks if she could come along, with them. It seems like it will be a smooth transition.
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The family, like all families, didn't think to recharge the phone battery or power bank while they were at the airport. So, the phones and power banks are low on power. Once they are in the van and on their way, the van is stopped by Belarus military, who demand money, which you think once they are paid, they will be allow the van to pass. Unfortunately, the driver pulls everyone out of the van, and they cut open the wire fence bordering Poland, and throw their bags over the top. This begins the saga of the refugees. They run into the swampy and treacherous forest, which is called the Green Border, and in fear and exhaustion make camp, they awake the next morning, and they walk. They are without water, or food. The children are desperate, and the baby is crying. The mother is nursing, but she explains that she is barely lactating.
The single woman approaches a farmer asking him for water and food. She offers to pay. He gives her apples and water. She looks back and he is on his phone. The Polish border guard show up, and provide energy bars, and water, place them in the back of a truck. The refugees try to explain they are seeking asylum. The polish guard, speaking on the phone is denigrating the refugees, calling them darkies, explaining they stink, and in minutes, they are back at the Belarus border.
This same exchange between the Polish guard and the Belarus soldiers, in the dangerous and bog filled forests, happens throughout the film, each time, the injury becomes worse, they are beaten, bitten by guard dogs, stolen from, phones are destroyed, they deprived of basic human rights, and each time they are herded back into Poland, they try to gain a little more ground.
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During this time, the refugee situation is worsening and becoming an appalling geopolitical catastrophe and those who have tried to flee ISIS and leave by sea are drowning, and their bodies are washing ashore in Greece, and because of these intense glaring visuals the world news has picked up the story and the plight of the refugees.
Daily, stories of the refugees are being told across the European continent, and much like segregation in the American South, the refugees face this type of discrimination, and physical abuse. Groups of Polish Human Rights activists have decided they will not allow this to continue. They form groups, an attorney to help process asylum requests, a doctor to help treat the injured, and other aid workers to help feed, provide warm clothes, fresh socks and new shoes.
Governments have set up a border zone extending five miles from the Polish border, and citizens are forbidden under criminal punishment to enter the zone. The activists, of course, do not care, and make their way to the makeshift refugee camps. Our family, that we have been tracking, are finally receiving care, food, and as they want to go to Sweden, they refuse the asylum. They are once again herded into trucks and sent back to Belarus which sets up devastating consequences and an unexpected ending.
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Nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for Best International Film Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium, Green Border is a distressing and agonizing film shot in stark black and white, and told in segments.
Uncompromising and gripping, Green Border explores the migrant issue from multiple perspectives: a Syrian family fleeing ISIS caught between cruel border guards in both countries; young guards instructed to brutalize and reject the migrants; and activists who aid the refugees at great personal risk.
While I understand the need for the length, at 152 minutes, the continued debilitating, grueling, and unbearable circumstances, followed each time by repeated hardships, and brutalities, is challenging. It is not an entertaining night at the movies; it is told in documentary style, and by the finale I was watching the clock, ready to end it.
Green Border is in limited release in the United States, and available throughout the world on various platforms, from streaming to On Demand.
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Country: Poland, France, Czech Republic, Belgium.
Language: Polish, Arabic, Russian, Belarusian in English subtitles.
Runtime: 152 minutes.
Director: Agnieszka Holland.
Producer: Fred Bernstein, Agnieszka Holland, Marcin Wierzchoslawski.
Executive Producer: Daniel Bergmann, Mike Downey, Jeff Filed, Emir Kulal Haznevi.
Writer: Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Lazarkiewicz, Agnieszka Holland.
Cast: Jala Altawil, Maja Ostaszewska, Talia Ajjan, Taim Ajjan, Behi Djanati Atai, Tomasz Wlosok, Muhammad Al Rashi, Dalia Naous, Monila Frajczyk, Jasmina Polak, Maciej Stuhr, Agata Kulesza, Michal Zielinski, Aboubakr Bensaihi, Joely Mbundi, Malwina Buss, Piotr Stramowski, Marta Stalmierska.
Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade. A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five screenplays, "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She is completing the non-fiction narrative, "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," which is expected to be released in early 2025. She is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a former member of the International Federation of Journalists.
