QUICK AND DIRTY: LIVE FROM VENICE

As part of its “zero-tolerance” strategy, the Donald Trump administration implemented a family separation policy almost as soon as the showman took office in January 2017. Within just a few months, the Office for Refugee Resettlement (ORR, an agency within the US Department of Health and Human Services) started taking children from their perfectly fit parents and placing them under government care. These families came mostly from Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua (known as the Northern Triangle of Central America) via Mexico.

The sheer cruelty of the controversial initiative was intended to serve as an immigration deterrent, well as an emblem of Trump ruthless pragmatism. The US president boasted that attorney general Jeff Sessions – one of the presumptive “fathers” of the policy, whose real authorship remains unknown to this day – “looked scary”. Immigration Customs and Enforcement Director Thomas Homan bragged on national television that “he couldn’t care less” (presumably about the moral repercussions of his actions). This is a regime that thrived on the most dubious qualities known to mankind.

The initiative was abolished less than a year later, following major protests spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), but not before it sparked worldwide outrage, with the infamous images of caged children travelling the globe at the speed of light. This was intentional, with journalists being invited to witness the aberration with their own eyes and write about it. Raspy-voiced, 76-year-old American documentarist Errol Morris sits behind the camera and interviews the “good guys”, in old-fashioned studio talking heads format. He talks to one such journalist (Jacob Soboroff), agents at the ORR and the ACLU, amongst others.

Bob Kadlec is one of such people. The ORR’s former assistant secretary of preparedness and response, who was also in charge or reuniting families in the aftermath of the policy, provides the backbone of the story. He repeats ad infinitum that he did everything within his reach in order to protect children. Given the amount of time he’s given, it’s safe to assume that Morris’s allegiance lies with him. Viewers can decide for themselves whether he is is genuine hero, or a self-proclaimed white saviour. The director does interviews anyone who passionately supported the controversial initiative. It’s not clear whether the director never attempted to approach these people, or if they simply refused to take part. Instead, we see archives images of Trump and his associates, particularly his icy spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, as they defend the “harsh” yet “necessary” measures, as part of the broader anti-immigration platform. The Republican Party weaponised unhinged brutality in order to galvanise their base.

Separated has its heart at the right place. The problem is that pretty much everything else is misplaced. Too much time is spent on the political machinations and repercussions of the policy, rather than the human cost. Morris picks the wrong compass by prioritising legality ahead of morality. We learn that more than 4,000 minors encountered such fate, including many babies, and that approximately 1,000 have never been reunited. Yet we barely see their faces (except for a few photographs in the final 15 minutes). It is extremely awkward that a film about separations should never hear those separated and instead focus on their tormentors and alleged saviours.

This 93-minute film is dotted with cringey, catastrophically staged and acted reenactments of families trying to cross the American border. Not even here the victims are allowed to speak up. Their only lines are the occasional screaming (“Diego!!!’), or abrupt, monosyllabic conversations. A pervasive suspense thriller soundtrack serves to irritate viewers further. The film’s most courageous takeaway and biggest saving grace is the denunciation of Biden’s complacence with the scheme. Nothing has changed since, and no laws have been created in order to prevent such immoral and inhumane policy from being implemented yet again in the future. Cruelty is a bipartisan American weapon, it seems. For Republicans, it’s a loud smoking gun. For Democrats, it’s a silent pistol. Both are equally lethal.

Separated just premiered at the 81st edition of the Venice International Film Festival, where it’s showing out of competition.