Borderline

(Kenneth Macpherson, UK 1930, 63 min., 35mm)

Paul Robeson dominates the screen in this silent drama of infidelity and interracial romance. Pete and Adah (Robeson and his wife Eslanda Robeson) move to a village in rural Switzerland. When Adah has an affair with a white man and the village finds out, the couple’s seemingly idyllic existence is upended by submerged racism coming to the surface. Macpherson, a novelist, photographer, and critic, uses avant-garde techniques to great effect and, without using his legendary voice, Robeson stands as a paragon of emotional pain.