Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

Borderline (1930)

This silent avant-garde feature drama, written and directed by Kenneth Macpherson, stars Paul Robeson and Eslanda Robeson, with Hilda Doolittle, Gavin Arthur, Blanche Lewin, Charlotte Arthur and Winifred Ellerman.

Independently produced on an extremely low budget, Scottish writer and publisher Kenneth Macpherson combines intense dramatic themes with an avant-garde presentation to render an oddly fascinating examination of an interracial relationship within a double love triangle. Full of imaginative camera angles, nonstandard framing, disturbing dramatic performances, and impressionistic images in a dazzling array of rapid cuts and long pensive takes, Macpherson’s Borderline was reputedly imfluenced by the films of Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and G.W. Pabst in not-so-much a derivative way as in an inspirational way.

Shot in the village of Territet, Switzerland, a portion of Montreaux, the film is briefly a valuable filmic record of the local environs as Pete (Paul Robeson) persues Adah (Eslanda Robeson) through a world of empty streets that is progressively occupied by the adult villagers, cats and children seemingly visiting from an alternate dimension. As more everyday life pours into the once claustrophobic mise en scène, Pete and Adah temporarily retreat behind the scenery having served their dramatic purpose in being the catalyst of marital infidelity to make way for the agony and subsequent violence between creepy and marginally repulsive Astrid (Hilda Doolittle) and her husband, the moody, tortured Thorne (Gavin Arthur). Abandonment and expulsion follow.

Open to many differing interpretations of the progression of the narrative, the film becomes increasingly engaging for the viewer as the abstract visuals imply the inner tempests torturing main characters. Less than adventurous persons may not get as much satisfaction from multiple viewings as will avant-garde aficionados but we dare say the film is certainly worth a once-through for all film buffs.

— Carl Bennett

The film is accompanied by a music score composed and performed by Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky) with a small jazz ensemble. While jazz rarely works with dramatic silent era films, the other worldly nature of the film is enhanced by the modern coolness of the score.

Supplemental material includes audio commentary by Anthony Slide.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Regions ABC Blu-ray Disc edition is available directly from . . .

The film is accompanied by a jazz music score composed and performed by Courtney Pine.

Supplemental material includes audio commentary by Pearl Bowser on Body and Soul; audio commentary by Jeffrey C. Stewart on The Emperor Jones; a 1958 Pacifica Radio interview with Paul Robeson; four programs featuring interviews with actors Ruby Dee and James Earl Jones, filmmaker William Greaves, cinematographer Tom Hurwitz, film historians Ian Christie and Stephen Bourne, and Paul Robeson Jr., and including film clips from Song of Freedom (1936), King Solomon's Mines (1937), and Big Fella (1938); and an insert booklet with an excerpt from Paul Robeson's Here I Stand; essays by Clement Alexander Price, Hilton Als, Charles Burnett, Ian Christie, Deborah Willis, and Charles Musser; a reprinted article by Harlem Renaissance writer Geraldyn Dismond; and a note from Pete Seeger.

This is our recommended DVD home video edition of the film.

This Region 1 NTSC DVD edition is available directly from . . .

The film is accompanied by a jazz music score composed and performed by Courtney Pine.

Supplemental material includes an interview with composer Courtney Pine; Kenwin (1996) by Véronique Goël; Close Up (1996) by Véronique Goël; trailers for Dreams That Money Can Buy (1948) and Pink Narcissus (1971); and an insert booklet.

This Region 2 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

The film is accompanied by a jazz music score composed and performed by Courtney Pine.

Supplemental material includes an interview with composer Courtney Pine; and an insert booklet.

This Region 0 PAL DVD edition has been discontinued and is . . .

Other AFRICAN-AMERICAN FILMS of the silent era available on home video.