Zielona granica

The plight of migrants making their way through Europe has been rendered in many recent films, but rarely with the insight and energy of Agnieszka Holland’s latest drama. The award-winning Polish writer-director’s approach is richly multifaceted: first centered on a Syrian family’s grueling transit into Poland, then expanding to a panorama of personal perspectives and political attitudes. Throughout, scrappy crusaders aid migrating families as they face brutal border guards in both Poland and Belarus, one young guard slowly awakens to the suffering routinely inflicted by his profession (that in turn evokes 20th-century horrors) and a therapist who lives near the border takes a dramatic plunge into activism. Shot in black-and-white images that prove especially sensitive to the unrelenting darkness faced by the migrants, Holland’s clear-eyed film confronts the moral, emotional and physical struggles of these characters with nuance and unpredictable, sometimes shattering plot developments. Ever tough-minded, Holland opens up questions about the very conscience of a modern society—not just for Poland (where conservative policies have embraced xenophobia) but for Europe as a whole. (Nicolas Rapold)

Agnieszka Holland: PROVINCIAL ACTORS (1979), FEVER (1980), A LONELY WOMAN (1981), ANGRY HARVEST (1985), TO KILL A PRIEST (1988), EUROPA, EUROPA (1990), THE SECRET GARDEN (1993), COLD CASE (2004), COPYING BEETHOVEN (2006), IN DARKNESS (2011), SPOOR (2017), MR. JONES (2019), CHARLATAN (2020)