NZIFF: Green Border

Brutal, enraging and heartrending, Polish writer-director Agnieszka Holland’s controversial take on the Polish-Belarusian border crisis serves as a startling call to arms in the face of a little-seen humanitarian crisis.

Polish auteur Agnieszka Holland has rarely been as strident or unflinching as with Green Border, a sprawling and terrifying depiction of the humanitarian crisis unfolding on the borders of Poland and Belarus. The titular border is in fact a stretch of densely forested territory, into which refugees from various parts of the world are unwillingly made political pawns of the hidden conflict between the European Union and Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian ruler of Belarus. Lured by propaganda of safe passage from Lukashenko, refugees are then bullied, physically assaulted and tossed into the freezing and treacherous border territory, only to be rounded up by Polish border guards and tossed back into Belarus, in an endlessly repeating cycle of pain and misery subjected upon some of the world’s most vulnerable citizens.

Captured in stark black and white, Holland controversially weaves together the disparate stories of refugees, aid workers and Polish border guards, which has touched a nerve within a country wrestling with its own responsibilities and history. The film’s epilogue, a startlingly frank reflection of who is permitted asylum and why, is deeply resonant. Green Border can be a tough watch, but the persistent thrum of Holland’s outrage is what hits the hardest. In a conflict dedicated to often overwhelming dehumanisation, that stirring of empathy within us, the audience, is what is most important to preserve. — Tom Augustine