Man’s inhumanity to man/makes countless thousands mourn are the two stanzas from Man was Made to Mourn: A Dirge composed by the Scottish poet Robert Burns in 1784 It is a fitting introduction to Green Border, Agnieszka Holland’s newest film on the European refugee crisis.

Green Border is a gritty, stone cold film dramatizing the unexpected terror experienced by a busload of refugees who have paid for their trek to freedom with their savings. Several times I wanted to stop watching the film; several times I distracted myself from the film by scrolling TikTok videos as I paused it. It did not help my viewing experience that Green Border runs for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Yes. Green Border is intense in its dramatization of brutality and desperation for asylum, which can be both compelling and difficult to watch. Holland refuses to let up!

The story begins with a high angle of a lush forest, and Tomasz Naumiuk’s camera quickly devolves into a cold black and white canvas of passengers aboard Turkish airlines. It’s October 2021. A hungry baby’s cry lacerates the quiet humm of the airplane, and a whispered conversation between two women—a mother and a middle-aged woman alerts the audience of the border crossing. The mother says to the woman:

“This route through Belarus is a gift from God. It’s a thousand times better otherwise I wouldn’t have come here. With children. Never in my life. In Harasta, Syria we lost everything, the home, the store. We escaped the siege for five years.”

As the Captain announces, “the temperature is -2. … It was my pleasure to have you all on board and we wish you a very good day”, we are lulled into a sense of safety upon the landing at Minsk airport in Belarus, a country in the center of eastern Europe. Panic ensues when the refugees realize the gift, or the route through Belarus, was but a ruse. One of the activists informs the group,

“The Polish Government does not want you here. It’s telling the Polish people that you are evil. The dictator of Belarus cheated you. He invited you on purpose to use you as weapon against the European Union, and now nobody wants to take responsibility for you here neither Belarus nor the Union.”

They are forced over a border separated by barbed wire and are left to fend for themselves in the forest. The forest is a poignant feature of Green Borders. It is unforgiving and provide no shelter from the elements. We are sutured into every discomfort you can imagine under these circumstances, to include lack of food and water and exposure to freezing temperatures. It’s mean-spirited in every way.

In Green Border, Holland deftly explores man’s inhumanity to man in the dramatization of human suffering, political tension, and the ethics of immigration policies, the latter a pressing global issue.

Green Border is a significant film because it is a major intervention into the conversation about immigration and human rights.