Review of Green Border (2023)
Seen in 2026.
In the time between the COVID-19 pandemic and a wave of migration following the outbreak of the Russo-Ukrainian war, a trickle of less welcome migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and various African countries is blocked by a lethal political conflict between Belarus and the European Union, near the Polish border.
The image fades from full colour to greyscale in the first shot and then stays black and white. The choice of greyscale is intended to remind the viewer of WW2 documentaries, but with that early touch of colour, it reminds me instead of Schindler’s List (1993) and the aestheticization of undeserved misery. Director Agnieszka Holland goes a step too far in that direction, inventing migrant characters with an outcome that is worse than average. The workplace culture of the border patrol, in both Belarus and Poland, is so sadistic that one guard commits murder in front of his colleagues by tricking a thirsty migrant into drinking from a broken thermos with fragments of glass inside, all without the prospect of gain and without any visible reprimand or ostracision.
I’m sure it is true, as Holland has claimed, that these composites are inspired by true stories, and the truth is outrageous. Moral outrage does not justify this misrepresentation. On the contrary, both a more truthful fiction and a documentary would have served the purposes of moral outrage better. Using greyscale in fiction to make people think of documentaries—and perhaps to make the special effects cheaper—is grotesque.
Contrary to this general thrust, the long running time allows for many excellent touches of realism. These appear on every side of the dilemma except that of the smugglers. If you’d cut those touches of realism, the film would have been grating, Manichean propaganda. With them, I think the film does manage to allow the viewer to see nuances of the real problem that are not seen in news reports, in spite of the misrepresentations.