This is first in a series to reflection on each documentary I saw at Mountainfilm Festival 2019. Each post will be a reflection on the documentary and a focus on the impact and the issue that documentary is raising. My goal is to share my authentic take on watching the films as a witness who cares about having an impact. This is not a film review. Spoilers are probably all up in this.
Like every American and likely every person around the world, we've all heard the sitting President of the United States talk about the wall. I won't do that justice by linking out to it. I've always said when the topic comes up in conversation that having grown up in San Diego, I realize how pointless a wall as a concrete barrier is. Pointless both because people find a way around it always, but pointless also in a greater sense. The amount of folks who crossed the border from San Diego / Tijuana everyday for commerce, for work, for recreation...it always was and continues to be high. I remember vacationing in Rosarito and Ensenada growing up. I remember my neighbor working in Tijuana, driving himself to the border and walking across to save time so his company would pick him up on the other side. The talk and rhetoric about the border has always been puzzling and annoying to me as someone from a border community. The rhetoric is so heated that other side from the United States could besome form of oozing evil that will come through any gap, when in reality, the border is an artificial construct in a way you really understand only by living near one. In reality it's always porous like Swiss cheese going in both directions, and we're better off economically, politically and as humans when we think about it this way.
I had heard that the monarch butterfly which migrates across the border by the millions was being threatened by Trump's border wall, and so was intrigued to catch this documentary at Mountainfilm 2019. The premise of the film is a fascinating concept. The filmmaker and a team of characters (literally and cinematically) will travel along the 1200 miles of the Colorado River that forms the border between Texas and Mexico from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. Canoes or kayaks, sure. I fully admit that I didn't expect before immersing myself in the film that this would involve bikes and horses. Bikes for the first stretch from El Paso because the river is fairly dried up, and horses through the amazing wildlands of Big Bend National Park.
Check out this beautiful imagery from The River and the Wall webpage and read more after the jump.
I had heard that the monarch butterfly which migrates across the border by the millions was being threatened by Trump's border wall, and so was intrigued to catch this documentary at Mountainfilm 2019. The premise of the film is a fascinating concept. The filmmaker and a team of characters (literally and cinematically) will travel along the 1200 miles of the Colorado River that forms the border between Texas and Mexico from El Paso to the Gulf of Mexico. Canoes or kayaks, sure. I fully admit that I didn't expect before immersing myself in the film that this would involve bikes and horses. Bikes for the first stretch from El Paso because the river is fairly dried up, and horses through the amazing wildlands of Big Bend National Park.
Check out this beautiful imagery from The River and the Wall webpage and read more after the jump.
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