Year: 2024

Runtime: 147 minutes

Directed by: Agnieszka Holland

Written by: Maciej Pisuk, Gabriela Łazarkiewicz, Agnieszka Holland

Starring: Jalal Altawil, Dalia Naous, Taim Ajjan, Talia Ajjan, Al Rashi Mohamad, Behi Djanati Atai, Tomasz Włosok, Joely Mbundu, Malwina Buss, Monika Frajczyk, Jasmina Polak, Maja Ostaszewska, Maciej Stuhr

By Sarah Manvel

On first assumptions, a black-and-white movie featuring multiple sequences of terrified people being forced to run a gauntlet between screaming Polish and Belarussian men in uniforms would be about the Holocaust. Director Agnieszka Holland clearly chose black-and-white to make a bigger point here, because the horrors depicted in “Green Border” are from three years ago, and still happening. This movie is a scream of outrage at the political systems that have made the atrocities shown here possible, as well as a scream of relief that there are brave people who will not stand for this. It’s a deeply upsetting and shocking film full of casual violence and extreme bravery, with an ending that reminds us all both the violence and bravery are choices. 

At the beginning, things are hopeful. A Syrian family of six – Bashir (Jalal Altawil) and his wife Amina (Dalia Naous), their children Nur (Taim Ajjan), Ghalia (Talia Ajjan) plus a baby, and Bashir’s father (Al Rashi Mohamad) – are finally out of the refugee camps after Belarus promised safe haven and a land route into Europe. On the flight into Minsk Nur is sitting next to an Afghani lady named Leïla (Behi Djanati Atai, also one of the four credited casting directors) who is kind to him. Bashir has a brother in Sweden who has paid for drivers to get them across the borders, and when the family realises there’s room in the van they invite Leïla along. This is lucky because she speaks fluent English and is carrying cash, so when the driver demands an unexpected bribe she immediately pays up. But very soon they all realise they are trapped. The Polish border guards, personified by Jan (a superb Tomasz Włosok), are under strict orders to accept no refugees from Belarus, because the Belarusian government has invited them only as an irritant to the European Union. So when the family finds Polish border guards they think they’ve found safety at last, only to be forced to run over the razor-wire fences back into Belarus. A guard smashes a thermos, throws it over, and laughs as a desperately thirsty young man swallows the broken glass. Another border guard starts pouring out a water bottle until Leïla pays fifty euros for it. The baby is crying, Ghalia has wet herself, Grandpa is bit by the dogs, and the hell has only just begun. 

Within the border zone anyone local is arrested on sight and anyone looking foreign risks being shot, or worse. But there are also activists brave enough to hike into the border zone with shoes, food, phone chargers and medical care for anyone they can find. The sight of pregnant women receiving pre-natal scans from an iPad on the forest floor, or when the pregnant Somali woman (Joely Mbundu) refuses to leave a transport van and is therefore simply picked up and thrown over the razor wire by the guards, is quietly contrasted with the kindness shown to Tomasz’s equally pregnant wife Kasia (Malwina Buss). The two leaders among the activists are sisters Marta (Monika Frajczyk) and Zuku (Jasmina Polak), though Zuku is much more willing to risk arrest than the pragmatic and iron-willed Marta. Eventually they meet a widowed psychologist named Julia (Maja Ostaszewska, a huge award-winning star in Poland) in dreadful circumstances, but the horror she witnesses spurs Julia into action. She opens her house and her finances to the activists and quickly becomes determined to help anyone she can, regardless of the cost. It’s this determination that eventually leads to the movie’s most hopeful scene, of five teenagers – two Polish siblings and three African boys – rapping “Mourir 1000 fois” by Oxmo Puccino together. It’s a song from 1998, in English the title means ‘die a thousand times’ and they all know all the words. 

But for every moment of levity and of defiance – the scene where the dark-haired Julia proves her Polishness to a border guard by reciting the Lord’s Prayer provoked grateful laughter from the Glasgow Film Festival audience – there’s many more moments of much worse. The dirty children, the frostbitten feet, the helpless screams of people as they witness a pointless death all builds to remind the audience that those are our choices. The kind Bashir, the caring Leïla, the hard-working Amina and the funny children are all suffering because Europe would rather cherish its ideals than living people. “Green Border”’s most intelligent decision is to show the damage this does to everyone involved, whether Marta’s quiet fury, Jan screaming in his car, or even Julia’s patient Bogdan (Maciej Stuhr) ranting that his hatred of the current Polish government has infected every moment of his life, including his dreams. Tomasz Naumiuk’s camera roams around finding the bitter moments – a suitcase left behind, a damaged foot, a shaky smile – while Pavel Hrdlička’s editing maintains a relentless pace that’s also so carefully handled there’s no chance to look away. 

But “Green Border” does even better than the similarly themed “The Strangers’ Case” in that none of the suffering on display here is noble. People make mistakes, starting on the airplane, and don’t always make smart choices, much less good ones. They’re rude in the supermarket, refuse to provide help which is easily given, or their righteousness makes them unbearable. Everyone here feels trapped one way or another – the unpleasantly wild party Jan hosts for his colleagues after an especially bad day at work makes that clear – and thirst and fear can make people capable of anything. But there are also people, also including Jan, who leave out water bottles for anyone who needs them. At one point a mother and child approach Ghalia as if she was a chained dog to offer her a sticky bun. It’s that kindness you hope to remember more than the blows to the head, the mud, the terror and the absolutely pointlessness of it all, but there is just so much evil. Even before you get to the very sharp and equally true ending. 

It’s not often I need a few stiff drinks to calm down after seeing a movie, but I did after seeing “Green Border.” This movie is a masterpiece both in how it is made and the impact which it will have. Literally none of this suffering needs to happen. But unless we do something, it will all continue, and movies like this are a beautifully brutal spur to action. It’s been officially denounced by the Polish government and has been at the center of arguments in Poland since its release there last fall, which can only mean, in that political climate, that it’s doing some good already.