The Invisible Barrier: How Cinema Is Addressing the Borderless World in an Age of Imagined Borders

In the wake of September 11 and the Western world's subsequent intervention in the Middle East, filmmakers have grappled with the inherently problematic 'us v. them' proposition. Andrew Doyle surveys some of the better-known examples and finds that the Other has never been more marginalised. Additional keywords: talking society, senior secondary, Welcome, Children of Men, Alfonso Cuaron, Alfonso Cuarón, Philippe Lioret, In This World, Michael Winterbottom, Jarhead, Sam Mendes, The Hurt Locker, Afghanistan, Kathryn Bigelow, Generation Kill, war, Iraq, Three Kings, David O Russell, Babel, Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alejandro González Iñárritu, The Battle for Haditha, Nick Broomfield, morality, Balibo, Robert Connolly, Green Zone, Paul Greengrass, soldiers, District 9, Neill Blomkamp, 911, 9/11, Stop-Loss, Kimberly Peirce, Brothers, Jim Sheridan, In the Valley of Elah, Paul Haggis