2145517’s Film blog

Jason De León (2015) conveys how the Sonoran Desert goes beyond being a foundation for human hardship, but rather serves as an active agent of violence. This week’s reading concentrated on De León’s exploration of how the desert, a supposedly natural landscape, has been seized by the USA’s immigration policy and made into a lethal instrument of control. Since the Prevention Through Deterrence (PTD) in the 1990s, migrants have not merely been threatened with not crossing the US-Mexico border, but have rather been forced into an incredibly dangerous domain that the majority cannot endure. The desert’s known heat, which leads to disorientation, and predatory wildlife become compliant with the US’s violence by acting as a branch of their torture, without having them lift a finger.

The US’s system persists as it is easy to deny any accusations of inhumanity. Although they trap the migrant victims in the dangerous landscape, the desert kills quietly. In other words, no weapons are being used that would leave holes, bruises or scars, but only human remains such as bones, which De León mentions detectives sent to gather “spent five minutes poking around before they called it quits” (p.25). The remaining items are clothes, shoes, and bags, which attest to a life once lived, destined to be cleansed. Furthermore, the lecture presents the desert’s violence as a sight structured to assist border control. The border possesses restricted visibility, making it, in a way, created by erasure as it conceals most traces of migrants. Consequently, the migrants are dehumanised as they become objects meant to disappear, not to concern the US with them. It reestablishes the US government when dealing with migrants: foreign lives are inferior and disposable.

The multi-layered violence of immigration control is portrayed in this week’s screening of Joshua Bonnetta and J.P. Sniadecki’s film El Mar, La Mar (2017). In the film, Bonnetta and Sniadecki use a combination of sporadic visuals and voice-overs of surviving migrant testimonies. In doing so, the audience is engaged further with the depiction of the border’s haunting reality. Instead of capturing the action to create an entertaining piece, the directors focus on the aftermath of the events, such as the abandoned belongings. Additionally, the sounds capture silence, emphasising the distinct imprint left by those who have been killed. Mirroring De León’s text, the film amplifies the erasure and disposability of migrant life and how the environment is reliable with the inhumanity within the border, as it is an agent of violence and border control.