‘Green Border’: Venice Review

Dir: Agnieszka Holland. Poland/France/Czech Republic/Belgium. 2023. 152mins

A Syrian family. An Afghan woman. A young border guard. A 50-something Polish psychologist-turned-activist. All find themselves in and around the inhospitable forest that marks the border between Belarus and Poland in this superb multi-stranded drama from Agnieszka Holland. There has been no shortage of films that deal with Europe’s current refugee crisis over the last decade or so. Still, this picture, with its supremely confident handling of a fractured, fragmented structure and its twin driving forces of compassion and fury, is undoubtedly one of the best.

Gains considerable power from the raw authenticity of the performances

There is an urgency and immediacy to the filmmaking – it’s shot almost documentary-style in striking black and white – that sets the picture apart from much of Holland’s recent work. Unlike the handsome, garlanded period dramas such as Charlatan (2020) and Mr. Jones (2019), Green Border feels bracingly contemporary in approach. The crackling anger of the piece, the furious energy and the searing timeliness of the subject should make this a festival favourite (going forward, it screens in TIFF and New York) and a likely awards contender. Theatrically, positive word of mouth may go some way towards overcoming audience fatigue when it comes to migrant stories.

Refugees have long been dehumanised by the governments of countries that would prefer not to wrangle with the moral consequences of refusing them entry. But the current situation between Belarus and Poland has gone beyond that. In a move by Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko calculated to provoke Europe, refugees have been lured to the Belarusian border by propaganda that promises a safe and easy passage into the EU. Instead, they find themselves met by Polish border guards who have been conditioned to think of them not as human, but as weapons in the armoury of Lukashenko and Putin. “They are live bullets,” says a senior guard during a rabble-rousing address designed to harness the hate already lurking in the hearts of his squad.

In the room is Janek (Tomasz Wlosok), a husband and soon-to-be father who is distracted by repeated phone calls from his heavily pregnant wife. Janek wears the uniform but he is increasingly troubled by the easy cruelty of some of his colleagues. He numbs his doubts with home-distilled hooch and crass casual banter.

On a flight to the Belarusian capital Minsk, meanwhile, hopeful refugees give thanks for the safe route that they have been promised into Europe. Among them is a family of Syrians: Bashir (Jalal Altawil), his wife Amina (Dalia Naous), their three children and Bashir’s elderly father (Mohamad Al Rashi). Leila (Behi Djanati Atai), an Afghan woman travelling alone, joins the family on their journey to the Polish border. But, far from the easy route that they had been promised, they, like hundreds of other desperate refugees, find themselves pawns in a geopolitical standoff, hustled back and forth across the border and suffering increasingly inhumane treatment from the uniformed thugs. A small, dedicated band of activists, whom Julia (Maja Ostaszewska) has recently joined, do their best to help the migrants, but are bound by a restrictive legal framework that blocks them from affecting much in the way of real change.

It’s a bruising and sometimes gruelling watch, which gains considerable power from the raw authenticity of the performances (several of the cast are actual refugees) and a sober, sparse, cello-heavy score. But it’s Holland’s masterly handling of mise en scene that is most impactful. In one intricately layered sequence, the kindness of the activists treating traumatised refugees with soup and succour plays out in the background while, in the foreground, a doctor pleads for an ambulance from the indifferent emergency services. In another, the Syrian family sits, bleeding and filthy, in front of a wall that bears a mural of the EU flag, in a pointed and damning indictment of European Union inaction in an ever-growing crisis.