green border (w&d agnieszka holland, w. gabriela lazarkiewicz-sieczko, maciej pisuk)

Green Border is at once arresting, epic and yet strangely empty. The experience of watching it is visceral: a collection of Syrians and Afghanis are seeking to enter fortress Europe via the Belarus-Poland border, a great wooded area which offers no shelter and is soon revealed to be a trap, as the Polish and Belarus border guards take turns in forcing the immigrants back and forth across the border. They find themselves stuck in a terrible limbo, which is only alleviated by the kind actions of a bunch of activists who head into the forest and offer medical and legal assistance, in so far as they can. The film switches focus at this point, remaining with the Polish activists, as well as recounting the story of a border guard who discovers his humanity. However, this switch seems to dislocate the movie to an extent. The perils faced by the Polish activists, whilst extreme in their own way, cannot compare to what the refugees have had to face and are facing. The activists’ stories feel like a lighter touch, steering us away from the crueller realities the first half of the film has engaged with. Green Border becomes more palatable, it moves away from the obscene. The refugee characters are left half-drawn, or dead. We do not have to suffer with them anymore and we are grateful to the filmmakers for this, but at the same time, it feels as though we have been let off the hook. In many ways Green Border captures the complexities and paradoxes of seeking to make political work within the cinema market place. The demarcated limits of how much empathy is permitted are clearly on display. For all the Europeans’ noble intentions, they almost inevitably sell their own stories, and that of their supposed subjects, short. Meanwhile, those on the wrong side of the fence have to fight for funding from wealthier nations, funding which comes with its own marketplace imperatives as to what will be palatable to the wider target audience the film is supposed to reach. 

tierra de españa (d. joris ivens)

Ivens’ film is an unashamed propaganda piece for the Spanish republic during the Civil War. The film centres on a region to the East of Madrid and the capital itself. Of particular interest to this viewer were the scenes from the university city, where I stayed for a few cold weeks nearly twenty years ago, at what would have been the front line back in those days. Ivens’ film uses the voice of Hemingway as its narrator, and his magisterial tones suggest that despite all the difficulties, most significantly the German airforce, all will be well in the end. Of course, we know it wasn’t to be, and Ivens’ positive message turned out to be misleading. There is so much about a war we don’t know from the outside: why the republican cause faltered, what lead to eventual defeat. Was it due to strategic error; internal indiscipline, as Orwell suggests; the superior mercenary forces ranged against it, as the film suggests; or the will of the people, whatever that might be? Being a propaganda piece, Ivens’ film doesn’t offer much clarity on the subject, as its aim is to rally the troops. What did strike me, though, watching the film, double billed with Buñuel’s, is that this was such a key moment in history. The victory of the far right, a European far right, emboldened Hitler and his allies. The disinterest from the UK or the USA or other natural allies, and the mixed reaction of the USSR, suggested that an attitude of non-engagement was their priority. Where we in the UK are shown a heroic version of WW2, we are never confronted with the counter-narrative of the world as it might have been had that far right movement been confronted  earlier in the process, before it had the chance to become a messianic death cult. 

benedetta (w&d paul verhoeven, w david birke)

The other day, talking about The Norseman, a film I have yet to see, I asked if there was anything more to it than the trailer suggests. I say this because, whilst in that instance, the jury would appear to be mixed, in the case of Benedetta, there is undoubtedly more to it than what it says on the tin. The publicity for the movie, another period piece, makes hay with the film’s salacious angle. Lesbian nuns always seems to be a selling point. Verhoeven’s film lives up to these elements and more, with plenty of tremulous sex and fantasy scenes. What run of the mill girl growing up in the shadow of the Black Death didn’t want to get it on with Jesus, the movie would appear to suggest. And if you can’t have Jesus, a shapely fellow nun is the next best thing. All of this is indeed over-the-top, ribald fun. However, there’s a hint of a more intellectual verve at play, particularly given the Covid context this film has emerged into. Supposedly based on a true story, the film closes with the revelation that the town which the more humanist Benedetta became abbess of, was one of the few places to survive the Black Death unscathed. Is there a correlation between sin and the damnation of plague? Did the plague come to us because we have lost touch with our raw feelings and emotions, our base humanity, in this material world? Benedetta doesn’t answer any of these questions, but they do float around in the background. The director himself seems to be testing the limits, deliberately presenting images which to some might be as shocking as Benedetta’s actions were to her contemporaries. You can, of course, ignore all of this, and go along for the well crafted and enjoyable ride, but it feels as though there’s more to Verhoeven’s game than sheer hedonism. 

utopia for realists and how we can get there. [rutger bregman]

Bregman’s book has a central thesis which is that everyone should be entitled to a universal basic income, anywhere in the world. He also believes in the eradication of borders and the implementation of a shorter working week. It’s an accesible read, which deliberately ensures the theories it proposes are readily comprehensible. The author is transparent in acknowledging that some people might find these ideas like something out of cloud cuckoo land, but then points out that radical ideas frequently seem entirely sensible in retrospect (abolition of slavey; women’s suffrage etc). The book has the advantage of being well researched, as Bregman investigates social experiments regarding a universal wage across the ages, looking at the relevant documentation. In the process he discloses a fascinating forgotten putative policy of Nixon to implement a universal income in the US, a policy which in the end, as we know, was never instigated. The book makes a strong economic case for the reforms he proposes, above and beyond any ethical imperative. It’s a down-to-earth, sensible investigation of what we mean when we refer to an economic good. For example: every book you ever read, unless you’re being paid for it, has, supposedly no measurable benefit. Or blog, for that matter. That time might as well have been spent, according to economic theory, lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Yet, surely, there is a benefit to be accrued? The fact that it can’t be measured is a fault of the system, not the action. Bregman is very good on these kind of paradoxes, exposing the inherent conceptual flaws in a capitalist system which he is also happy to defend. In these weird times, when no-one seems to know how politics is supposed to impact on economics and personal well-being, (it’s just agreed that it isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do), Bregman’s book is great thought-provoker and antidote to the bleating fools of both right and left.

clean hands (w&d. tjebbo penning; w. carl joos)

Sometimes you head blind to the cinema. You have a few spare hours and pick something at random. It's a hit and miss process. Clean Hands is a Dutch film, released in the UK, which makes it a rarity. For all I know Holland may have a cinema culture as radical as its footballing culture. For a country which is geographically so close as well as being culturally so for centuries, we in Britain know very little about Dutch cinema. Unfortunately, Clean Hands does not offer much of an insight into what we might be missing. It's a generic crime caper. There's a plucky heroine married to a small time hood who starts relatively sympathetic and then becomes increasingly psychotic. The narrative depicts a woman in peril, doing what she can to get by. The acting is fine and there may be nuances to the dialogue which the subtitles didn't capture, but in the end this is a humdrum tale. For all its competence, the movie never succeeds in generating any real tension. It makes one wonder why, of all the Dutch films which one imagines are made every year, this one was chosen for a UK release. The cinema was surprisingly full for an afternoon weekday screening. If there is an audience for Clean Hands, how much greater might be the interest in something more adventurous?