Pages

Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Holland and Breillat: Green Border and Last Summer

A scene from Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border. (Photo: Agata Kubis)

The gorgeous opening shots of Agnieszka Holland’s Green Border reveal a lush lime-green expanse. It’s a dream landscape, symbolic of the free and happy future that refugees from Syria and Afghanistan and other oppressed or war-torn Middle Eastern and Asian countries set their hearts on when they cross the border from Belarus into Poland. But these images, like the movie’s title, are ironic: almost immediately, Holland and her first-rate cinematographer, Tomasz Naumiuk, shift into black and white and we never see color again.