Broken Land
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Broken Land |
| Original title | Broken Land |
| Country of production | Switzerland |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 75 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Stéphanie Barbey Luc Peter |
| production |
Intermezzo Films Aline Schmid |
| music | Franz Treichler |
| camera |
Peter Mettler Luc Peter |
| cut |
Florent Mangeot Peter Mettler Vincent Pluss |
| occupation | |
| |
Broken Land is a Swiss documentary directed by Stéphanie Barbey and Luc Peter from 2014 and is about seven Americans who live near the border fence with Mexico .
action
Seven Americans live in the shadow of the border fence near the US-Mexico border. You can all find traces of the immigrants in the sand of the seemingly endless desert. Broken Land shows the perspectives of these border residents and how they deal with the situation.
Richard Hodges and Zack Taylor have an enormous need for security. Guns and surveillance cameras are a sign of this. Hodges demonstrates how laser pointers , which he and his wife have attached to the pistols in their bedside table, ensure that they don't even have to aim at an intruder to shoot him. He also suspects that large vehicles leading to the border fence on the Mexican side could possibly even transport nuclear weapons. Taylor explains that there is a safe border only if you are not even attempted to cross it.
John Ladd is a rancher suffering from the situation near the border. He longs to go back to the good old days, when American and Mexican ranchers helped each other with cattle drive and you could go to Mexico to go to restaurants, have a beer and party, which has not been possible since the fence is.
Robin and John Warren are also critical of the fence and the politics that go with it. They feel that their own government has robbed them of their freedom and rights and see themselves locked in by the fence as the migrants are locked out. The two ex-hippies try to put themselves in the shoes of the immigrants and help with food and medication, which they deposit in the area as gifts and help for the migrants. Robin Warren tells the story of how an acquaintance and his daughter were shot dead in their own home by one of the many self-proclaimed vigilantes.
Stony and Roadrunner, two former Vietnam veterans, form one such vigilante group. Armed to the teeth, they use their military training to hunt down illegal immigrants near the border. Glenn Spencer also fights the illegals, with his private plane he looks for migrants and tries to defend the "largest country in the universe". Finally, Bruce Anderson is introduced, a medical examiner whose job it is to clarify the identity of Jane and John Does , migrants who perished in the desert.
production
The filmmaker's idea was to show what becomes of a democracy, which walls are built, and how a country wants to protect itself from migration, even though it is based on them. The film is about paranoia, fear and isolation and lets the viewer explore their own attitude towards immigration in a subtle way.
The film premiered on August 14, 2014 at the Locarno Semaine de la critique . The cinema release in German-speaking Switzerland was on January 29, 2015.
criticism
The Amnesty magazine wrote of the film: "Barbey and Peter resist it, foist a fixed judgment to the audience, but let their idiosyncratic protagonists speak for themselves. In doing so, they provide a new perspective on a well-known problem. "
Web links
- Broken Land in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Website for the film
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Broken Land , press information on the film on the website of the film distributor Xenixfilm, accessed on January 21, 2015
- ↑ Information page about the film on the website of the film distributor Xenixfilm, accessed on January 21, 2015
- ↑ Im Mauerschatten (PDF) , article in Amnesty magazine from December 1, 2014.