Educational Media Reviews Online

At the start of Walled In, filmmaker Paul Moreira makes a bold claim, that “the 21st Century will be the century of walls, and the future is now.” Moving from France to Brazil to Iraq, Moreira presents an argument for this claim, presenting various communities which have walled themselves in so that others may be kept out. In urban France, the middle class has increasingly retreated into gated communities to avoid the dangers of unemployed and sometimes dangerous youths; likewise in Rio de Janeiro, the middle class seeks to avoid the slums and drug-runners literally across the road from their gated condominiums. Moreira presents various interview snippets with several people in these communities, who tend to comment that the situation is unfortunate but necessary. Sometimes they come across as small-minded paranoiacs, but at other times, they speak with convincing straightforwardness about the gang violence and shootouts over drugs they’ve witnessed, and how they don’t want their children growing up somewhere those forces are allowed free reign.

Underneath Moreira’s presentation are persistent questions about government boundaries: has the public government in France and Brazil driven private citizens to these measures through inaction, or through failed action? On the other hand, Rio’s seizing of the slums in 2010 is presented by Moreira; though the traffickers were pushed out, constant police presence is required to make sure they don’t return. Is this justice? The slow start of a police state? Yet now doctors, firefighters, and other social services can access the slums. There aren’t easy answers.

Moving to Iraq, Moreira explores the very literal walls – similar to the Berlin Wall – which American forces constructed to cordon off the areas of Baghdad controlled by insurgents during the Iraq War. Locals are interviewed about the process, clips of American military officers explaining the process are shown, and once again there are no easy answers: while the walls did make civilians safer, they also introduced very real social and hierarchical splits within the city’s community, and a prison atmosphere. This documentary presents a nuanced perspective on questions of the social contract, and the role of war and government within it, in a brief, accessible, highly visible way.