Black Brown White
Truck driver Don Pedro (Fritz Karl) has already made the trip dozens of times, transporting Ukrainian garlic to Morocco. Then he picks up refugees who are hidden behind vegetables and smuggled to Europe. The business Pedro and his wily partner, Jimmy (Karl Markovics), involves risk, but it’s extremely lucrative. The problems begin when a young woman (Clare-Hope Ashitey) refuses to crawl into the truck’s hiding place like the others. Instead, she takes a seat in the cab with her young son. Her destination’s Geneva, where she intends to confront the boy’s father, a UN official, with his responsibility.A tricky journey into the Schengen zone begins, and it requires outsmarting customs officers in Tangiers, a member of Doctors Without Borders (Wotan Wilke Möhring), a police detective (Francesc Garrido) and a fellow trucker from Ukraine (Jurij Diez). When Jackie’s young son gets lost in the endless sea of plastic greenhouses of Spain’s Almeria and is almost arrested, Pedro claims to be the boy’s father.
Erwin Wagenhofer’s BLACK BROWN WHITE is a suspenseful, laconic road movie full of nuance, and in the course of the journey a calculating truck driver is transformed into a helper who’s sympathetic to the refugees’ plight. Made in Cinemascope, the film’s cameraman Martin Gschlacht created powerful images with the impressive rocky landscapes and dusty trails of Andalusia that underline the loneliness and sadness of its protagonists. The Spanish Flamenco guitarist Niño Josele provided the film music.
