How can you not be affected?
An aerial image of a seasonal forest with a few shades of green. When the title of the work appears on the screen, that same forest gradually begins to lose its color, black and white dominates the image and we continue like this until the end. Both the original Polish and English titles are ironically harsh, since all green (green hope?) or any color disappears from the lives of our characters. The Portuguese title (I confess, less poetic) takes us to a geographical area that I'll talk about later.
Polish director Agnieszka Holland (Sons of War, 1990; The Secret Garden, 1993) fictionalizes in a very disturbing, poignant and urgent way the journey of a Syrian family (Amina, Bashir, Ghalia, Nur, Grandpa and a baby) and an Afghan teacher (Leila) between the Polish border and Belarus (Belarus) who, each with their own motivations, intend to seek asylum in other European countries. This takes us out of a certain alienation: we have one of the worst humanitarian crises of the 21st century where thousands of refugees are migrating legally or illegally to the European Union, either fleeing dictatorial policies in their countries of origin, environmental catastrophes (including changes caused by humanity itself) or religious radicalism.
The photography (Tomasz Naumiuk) in black and white with a certain degree of graininess throws us into this dense and desperate story. The camera, which is often nervous, using close-up, American and medium shots, gives all the action involving the characters' struggle to reach their destination. Sometimes things happen so quickly and brutally that we get a little lost in the action, not because there's any confusion in the way the film is shot, but because we're in the eye of the hurricane. Before you know it, you're shocked and in disbelief at the mesh of events that involves violence by border police officers, hunger, cold, thirst, humiliation, abandonment, racism, xenophobia and even theft by these same officers. Not even children are spared (how can we forget the image of a refugee child drowned on a beach in Turkey in 2015). And as if that wasn't enough, our characters are thrown from one side of the border to the other through an illegal action called pushback, where refugees are forced to retreat across a border just after crossing it. At a certain point in the movie, the pushback stops and everyone is taken to the exclusion zone referred to in the Portuguese title, where no journalists or humanitarian aid can enter.
The film is divided into chapters and other characters appear over the course of the film: more refugees in increasing desperation, to the point of fighting each other for water, a border policeman with a guilty conscience (Jan), a psychologist (Julia) who, after witnessing a tragedy, joins a humanitarian aid organization, but with very limited power. There is some respite with the entrance of Bogdan, a character who is very critical of the Polish government's extreme right-wing policies and who helps hide a group of young Africans. The scenes involving the rescue and the hiding place, culminating in the Rap sung by these young people and Bogdan's children, are heartwarming.
Eventually, the characters help refugees, confront the police, get outraged by events, so that the first idea is that there is still hope for us. However, it's very little or almost nothing in the face of the current aggressive geopolitics practiced in the world. It's a devastating film, and in the final chapter, the hypocrisy of immigration laws is exposed when we see the arrival of thousands of Ukrainians in Poland and how they are treated. As one character says at one point: “My only crime is having the worst passport in the world”. Director Agnieszka Holland, at the age of 75, gives us a lesson in courage.
Fun facts: I was surprised to find out after researching the director that some episodes of well-known series were directed by her: The Wire, The Killing and House of Cards.
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