Errol Morris, the acclaimed filmmaker known for his work in “The Thin Blue Line,” is not one to explicitly advocate causes even when dealing with politically sensitive subjects. Morris puts more emphasis on the idea, rather philosophy; even a cosmic one.
In his documentary “American Dharma 2019,” he focused on explaining the motives of the former chief strategist of the Trump White House, Stephen K. Bannon. In “Standard Operating Procedure” (2008) Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison photographs were the subject, as to how acts that seem overtly torture are nevertheless acceptable and deemed normal in certain situations. The same can be said about the portraits of Robert S. McNamara in “The Fog of War” (2003) and Donald H. Rumsfeld “The Unknown Known” (2014). Even Cronkite had retired when this War diplomat was hired still the idea of Vietnam War oversaw mirrors towards this man from McNamara explaining the majority of the events that transpired prior to 2003.
Morris’s “Separated” on the practice of forcibly removing children from parents at the Southern border during the Trump administration is closer to a direct intervention. The director made no secrets out of wanting it to be out there before the presidential elections but with the movie already showing in theaters, it is not expected topple the MSM’s audience’s attention before Dec. 7th. He complained recently on X: “Why is my movie not being shown on NBC prior to the elections? No such reason exists except that it is not a partisan movie and it is dealing with sick policy that is simply not allowed. Figure it out yourself.”
If indeed “Separated” is perhaps better regarded as an uncomplicated issue documentary on American foreign policy, is thus likely to be remembered as one of Morris’s more straightforward films then the director has lost none of his great sense of dark comic absurdity. The writer looks at the history of family separations through the eyes of Jonathan White who was an employee of the Office of Refugee Resettlement of Department of Health and Human Services that initiated such practices back in 2017 when these events were largely unnoticed.
Speaking at the Venice Film Festival, Morris asserted the paradox: “It would make no sense to mask it if deterrence was the motivation,” he said in August. But there’s a trace of Sellers in that thinking style: “The whole point of the doomsday machine is lost if you keep it a secret.” But Dr. White claimed that “children as a target, was a part of the point.”
In this Dec 2020 photo, a child plays with a pillow at the McAllen convention center as Gonzales and other protesters remained outside. White and Jalyn Squalor, who also worked for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, are among the strongest respondents in the film “Separated: Children at The Border”. Images of two blue collar desk workers claiming a sudden insurmountable level of bereavement appear viscerally jarring. Squalor recalls becoming cognizant of separations when field staff began reporting young children being brought in and the children’s ages and the language barrier presented a challenge to reunifying the families. I’m not sure we got all of them,” Squalor said. The documentary references a Homeland report released in 2024 that states the number of children separated from their parents exceeded four thousand.
The most generous thing that could be said about their absent looking boss, Scott Lloyd, who headed the Office of Refugee Resettlement, is that it is doubtful he even knew an Errol Morris movie existed prior to this. In the same breath, Jacob Soboroff who is a correspondent for NBC and also works as an executive producer for ‘Separated’ documentary and also authored the book with the same title, comes across light in the reporting. Indeed, at one point, he insinuates that the DHS intended to employ my journalism in a way that would terrify migrants and pummel Congress into submission.
As is typical of Morris, he chooses to dramatize his story: in this case, a mother and son crossing the border, being separated and later reuniting. In this regard, Caspar’s passion or his remarks on the existence of political quislings willing to carry out a sadistic policy like the enforced separation of children from their parents are convincing enough. “If politicians desire to inflict suffering in order to deter others, such people will be sought and such methods will be at their disposal,” he argues.
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