100
The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin
If cinema is an empathy machine, to paraphrase the late Roger Ebert, then Agnieszka Holland’s new film is one precision-tooled specimen.
Green Border (Zielona granica)
Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
- Poland,
- United States,
- Czech Republic,
- France,
- Belgium,
- Germany,
- Turkey
- 2023
- · 152m
Director
Agnieszka Holland
Cast
Jalal Altawil,
Maja Ostaszewska,
Behi Djanati Atai,
Tomasz Włosok,
Mohamad Al Rashi,
Dalia Naous
Genre
Drama
Set at the “green border,” the forests between Belarus and Poland, this film follows Julia, a psychologist turned activist who aids refugees seeking asylum in the European Union from the Middle East and Africa. One of the families she seeks to help is from Syria, and they arrive with their English teacher from Afghanistan.
Stream Green Border
What are critics saying?
100
Screen Daily by Wendy Ide
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.
100
Variety by Jessica Kiang
While you’re still in the vice-like grip of its multilevel narrative it may not feel like it, but a film like Agnieszka Holland’s bruisingly powerful new refugee drama ultimately comes from a place of optimism.
100
Time Out by Phil de Semlyen
A gripping, visceral human drama that occasionally turns shakycam thriller to excellent effect, it’s a small victory for empathy over coarseness. Like Michael Winterbottom’s prescient 2003 docudrama In This World, it demands that you witness the treatment of refugees with your own eyes.
100
The Irish Times by Tara Brady
The cross-cutting between activism, brutish military figures and merciless degradation doesn’t always work. But the haunted faces of actors such as Jalal Altawil are hard to forget.
100
New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri
By replicating the process of dehumanization, the film’s form forces us to confront our own inaction. Green Border is unforgettable, in all senses of the word.
100
The Observer (UK) by Wendy Ide
It’s a supremely accomplished work.
100
Time by Stephanie Zacharek
It’s a work that blends compassion with artistry so purely that there’s no way to separate them. This is bold filmmaking that makes us feel more courageous too.
100
The A.V. Club by Natalia Keogan
What’s most marvelous about Green Border—aside from its resounding commitment to humanization, buttressed by a thrilling and harrowing narrative—is that it doesn’t let anyone off the hook.
100
The New Yorker by Justin Chang
Scene by scene, Green Border is a work of devastating intelligence, striking visual clarity, and extraordinarily propulsive anger.
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