Dark Blue is a 2022 short drama narrative written and directed by Stephen Cole Webley about an immigrant (played by Salvador Chacon) who starts his journey from Mexico to the US and stumbles across a grizzly scene.
The film starts with a pickup truck carrying blindfolded immigrants as they go from Mexico to the US border, accompanied by a heavily armed guard. The truck makes its down unpaved roads as it nears the US Border, where it comes to an abrupt halt. The immigrants have their blindfolds removed and are instructed to get out and make their way from this point on foot. This is the film’s prelude.
We suddenly cut to a single car sitting in the vast desert landscape. Inside the 1980s Chevy Camaro, we see a man (played by Michael Cudlitz, who is, for some reason, uncredited) finish his cigarette before getting out of the car and proceeding to the trunk. Before opening the trunk, he takes his gun out and loads it with bullets. We reveal an injured man (played by Benedict Samuel – it’s worth noting that both Cudlitz and Samuel were cast mates in ‘The Walking Dead’) who is injured and bleeding. He is then led from the trunk but too injured to walk on his own and is assisted to a pre-dug grave, where he gets in of his own doing and proclaims his readiness for what’s coming next.
While in the grave, the man (Cudlitz) recites a version of the famous poem “Immortality” by Clare Harner. He gets distracted as he reaches the latter verses, causing him to pause. He looks up to see in the distance a lone figure walking in their direction. In this momentary lapse in concentration, the other man (Samuel) takes this opportunity to attempt to save himself.
He lunges forward to pull the man’s (Cudlitz) feet from under him, causing him to fall backward and strike his head on a rock. The man (Samuel) falls back into the grave and sits motionless, nervously anticipating what might come next. From his POV, the Immigrant emerges into the frame and looks down into the grave. He then notices the car parked a short distance away and makes his way toward it, revealing that the man(Samuel) has already made his way to the car and is sitting motionless against it.
The Immigrant leans down to check on him and sees he is wounded. He lifts his shirt, revealing that he has a gunshot wound. At this point, the man pushes his hand away and asks for “agua,” which the Immigrant obliges by pouring water from his bottles into his mouth. He then offers the keys to the car to the Immigrant and mumbles, “Please,” his last-ditch effort to be saved.
The Immigrant walks to the car and gets in while the man weakly tries to grab at his ankles. The Immigrant sits and contemplates his next move. We cut to night; as we drive through the desert, he stops and pauses in self-reflection for a moment before we hear a cough from the backseat. The film ends with a wide shot of what appears to be a well-traveled road, presumably across the border in the United States.
The film is a powerful observational of human resilience and the ability to make impossible decisions even in the face of creating more jeopardy for yourself.
The Other Cinema 