The Green Border

Original Title: Zielona Granica

Directed by: Agnieszka Holland

Length: 152 min.

Country: Poland

Year: 2023

Premiere: Venice Film Festival 2023

Availability: theatrical release (from 21 June in UK)

Synopsis: a syrian refugee family tries to enter the EU through the Belarus-Polish border, knowing little that they're instruments in a larger political game.

RATING: 4/5

REVIEW

The Green Border's most important trait is that it is a topical film about a contemporary emergency, perhaps Agniezka Holland's most socially relevant film. That is not to to say however that The Green Border is entirely perfect, but most of its flaws are justified by its context and complex burden of trying to narrate and present a situation often downplayed by european media - and potentially being the only film ever to be made about it. Ever since its victory, The Green Border has been at the center of controversies and backlash, mostly due to its anti-government views. Inevitably polarizing, The Green Border is a film best seen before forming an opinion.

Set in 2021, The Green Border describes, through three intertwining storylines, the migrant crisis on the belarus-polish border that had seen countless refugees from syria in the literal crossfire between polish and belarus border guards, following the invitation that Lukashenko has made for the refugees to enter the EU through Belarus.  The film aims at an universal description of the situation, by presenting the stories of a syrian migrant family, a polish citizen that radicalises into activism, and a border patrol guard that struggles with the horrors he perpetrates.

It is not a repetitive "game of perspectives" narrative where the same scenes are replicated from different points of view, but one single linear narration that jumps between points of view, sometimes favouring one to the other. A non-liearity of perspectives rather than of chronology that ultimately favours the structure of the film and, with its simple subversion of storytelling, avoids unoriginality. Sometimes the pacing and tone difference does harm the effect: inevitably some threads (such as the Syrian family's struggles) are more interesting than others, and some parts of the activist's storyline feel a bit overly paradigmatic - though the justification lies in the fact that such openly political statements find little space in film nowadays.

Although Holland has done films about the Shoah and the Holodomor, The Green Border might be her most shocking movie ever. The violence and cruelty of border patrol guards (more so on the belarus side, but without sparing the polish from criticism) is extremely shocking, especially with the presence of children. More so than in previous works, Holland does not shy away from the direct depiction of violence, which makes The Green Border hard to watch, even if not as graphic as Klimov. If any proper parallel with the na*i regime could be made, it is in the fact that a comparable dehumanisation and a similar dynamic of violence is depicted.

This is Agnieszka Holland's first feature film in Black and White. While this choice's idiosyncrasy with the handheld camera technique sometimes does not have a compelling effect, the textures of the forest that is the main setting of the film, the lighting contrasts of the patrol lights with the dark night scenes make the film visually stunning. Truly, it does not feel like black and white is just the refiltering of a colour palette.

The Venice Film Festival in 2023 sees a number of east european films that are politically charged, with The Green Border being the most poignant of the bunch. As imperfect as it is, Holland's latest work is a necessary film.

Review originally published on September 6, 2023 on the instagram page @east.euro_flicks