But as I watch the couple clamber down from the back of a truck and crowd in with about twelve other individuals, they are real people to me and, as intended, I’m involved with their fates. The subtitled instructions are simple – stay together, don’t make noise and do whatever you’re told. Anyone who wants to go back should do so now but no one will bring you back if you go ahead. ‘¡Entiende, entiende!’ whispers round the huddle and heads nod. The soundtrack to the march is the shuffle of feet through sand and heavy breathing as the pace increases. Sometimes a foot snaps something brittle or a thorn bush tears at a coat. Once there is what sounds like a dog barking in the distance. There is a shot of a momentarily frozen rabbit with startled neon eyes. The pictures fade out – real time is too long for an audience. When they return we see the group at silent rest in a brush-circled clearing. Some drink from various containers. And then they’re on the move again in single file, leading to mostly shots of someone’s back. A digital clock appears in the bottom of the screen to make us aware of how much time is passing without the necessity of seeing every step. We’ve never been told where they are, so perhaps it’s the Sonoran Desert or one of a hundred other crossing places. And then many hours later there is the sudden flare of a spotlight and an amplified voice telling them to give themselves up and a rush of panic as the dark figures scatter in all directions. Feet stumbling in the loose sand in a burst of heavy breathing. Backpacks slapping against the shoulders of each of the runners. Brush being pushed aside. Clothes being plucked and snagged. The camera fades.

The camera stays faded into darkness until we get a reprised shot of the father standing at his open door. Looking out at unbroken space, cloudless sky. His hand drops slowly from the frame. The door is closed. Very poetic, Corley. Although perhaps a little too obvious with its symbolism. And I still haven’t seen anything that is pertinent to me and start to wonder if it is just as I originally imagined, an exercise in catch-up on his part, a decades-late attempt to self-justify when in truth he doesn’t need to prove anything. But just as the writing on the screen tells us that the brother and sister failed in their attempt at crossing but intend to try again, then fades, and suddenly I am startled by my own personal subtitled message instructing me to look closely at unused footage.