Separated
(USA/Mexico, 93 min.)
Dir. Errol Morris
Earlier this year, renowned movie studio Participant Media abruptly shuttered their operations. After more than 20years of working in Hollywood, the studio that once brought Oscar-darlings such as Moonlight (2016) and Green Book (2018), as well as countless documentaries, left behind its philanthropic legacy on a fateful Tuesday morning. The studio’s mission was to produce films which could inspire real social change. In the aftermath of its demise, a surprise Errol Morris production emerged from Participant’s final premiere slate. After touring the festival circuit with his intimate John le Carré profile The Pigeon Tunnel last year, Morris predictably returns to his political camera with another damning indictment of the American government.
In collaboration with Participant executives, Morris’ spiritual successor to his controversial Steve Bannon doc American Dharma focuses on the bureaucratic nightmares of the Trump administration. More specifically, with Separated, Morris magnifies the unconstitutional separation of undocumented children from their families. While attempting to find a better life for their children, the illegal immigrants are forcefully displaced at the border. Separated, in typical Morris fashion, tells his devastating political screed through talking head interviews and dramatizations. The film largely spotlights both sides of the diplomatic coin where the subjects discuss the creation of the notorious Zero Tolerance policy. In the process, Morris critiques the institutional malpractice behind his country’s legislative walls.
Morris includes screen-captures of email threads to illuminate the complex web of administrative secrets and lies that backed the corrupt policy. Separated maintains a brisk pace with his storytelling. The film carefully unveils the hypocrisy and militaristic fascism at the helm of Trump’s abusive policies. Morris includes testimonials from Scott Lloyd, who was the former director of the Office of Refugee Resettlement in 2017. Morris humiliates Lloyd during his interview by questioning his silent participation in the construction of the Zero Tolerance policy. In response, Lloyd talks back with governmental scripted jargon.
Notably, the documentary speaks to the current failures of congress in its role of preventing similar legislation from coming to fruition. Separated calls out both the Trump and Biden administration on their lack of systemic change. The film considers the complicit actions of the current administration, which used the guise of patriotism to turned its back on immigrant families seeking asylum. With the 2024 election on the horizon, Morris’s plea urgently singles out members of congress for their complicity in the dehumanization of immigrants..
Enforcing the testimonials, the dramatizations tell the devastating story of a family attempting to flee their homeland.The sequences provide a humanistic dramatization of the institutional abuse that migrants face upon their arrival in the United States. Gabriela Cartol and Diego Armando Lara Lagunes’ intimate portrayal of a mother and son seeking asylum enhances the impact of the testimonials. Within the recreations, Morris pairs images of border fences with the spinning motion of a zoetrope. Hand-drawn animation is included with the dizzying motions. Morris intercuts the animated B-roll with footage of the walls that segregate asylum-seekers at the border.
While Morris’s attempts at humanisation through recreation are admirable, the largely Caucasian cast of interviewees lacks an immigrant perspective on the systemic issues. There’s an imbalance between the empathetic fictional threads and the realities of the spoken-word ones. By solely focusing on the testimonials of the enablers and conscientious participants behind the Zero Tolerance Policy, Separated aptly distances itself from the cruelty of the state-produced crimes in favour of a safer perspective. Morris’s criticisms of the American state are undeniably essential, but his political camera needs the participation of the victims involved.
Whereas fans of Morris’s filmography might find Separated a lesser work within his impressive oeuvre, the documentary still manages to inform his viewers on the ugly truths of homeland security. Continuing Participant’s mission towards tackling intense social subject matter through cinema, Morris bravely interrogates current draconian immigration policies. To this day, over 1000 immigrant children remain separated from their families. As an empowering work of nonfiction, Separated effectively riles up audiences with an illuminating, albeit incomplete, portrait of the senselessness of borders and nationalist ideology.
