When the von Trapp family make it over the border to Switzerland, their ordeal is over and all is well (or so "Sound of Music" implies). Not so with the six forlorn refugees of "The Boat is Full." Having reached Switzerland after a perilous escape from Nazi Germany, their ordeal has just begun. They end up in a small village where an innkeeper couple take them in and try their best to provide food, clothing, shelter, and protection from the authorities.

The movie examines the attitudes of the Swiss towards refugees who were escaping Germany and seeking safety in their country. It provides a good insight not only into the official policies regarding which refugees were allowed to stay and which were forced to be repatriated, but also the attitudes of the common people. Some were openly hateful, most were indifferent and callous, many genuinely compassionate and kind.

The overall arc of the story is less important with this movie than the individual scenes and episodes that take place. Each conveys a particular pathos and engraves itself in one's memory with indelible force. The acting is almost totally transparent: you feel these are real people going through real events. The refugees' blank, despondent expressions, the gradual transformation of the innkeeper husband from suspicion to tolerance to outright kindness, the harsh authoritarian attitudes of the policeman, these all contribute to the film's effect.

It's a stark film to watch: there is no score, the colors are heavily muted and drab, and there are few points of comfort or cheer. One is left with a profoundly ambivalent view of the Swiss and Switzerland, which apparently was known as the "lifeboat" of central Europe (hence the irony in the title). The film is basically examining where the line could/should have been drawn between compassion and the need to maintain Swiss neutrality and protect its own borders and feed its people.

This is a rather small movie, realistic, concentrating on its people. German and Austrian refugees come to Switzerland, find shelter at a countryhouse and experience that they are not really wanted there because the Swiss have their own problems yet they are not in war. It's a dense movie, with authentic actors and simple but convincing dialogues.

The fact that it ends up not in one big but in some smaller singular tragedies is not particularly stressed; the true story the movie is based upon is told plainly, without cinematic flamboyance and therefore the movie gains a somewhat disturbing, unpleasant touch. Actually, this is the first Swiss World War II movie I've seen and it was interesting to get to know their point of view too. I recommend this.

"Das Boot ist voll" or "The Boat Is Full" is a 100-minute film from 1981, so it has its 35th anniversary this year. It is a collaboration between Switzerland, West Germany and Austria, so the main language in here is of course German. The director is Swiss filmmaker Markus Imhoof (recently successful with a documentary on bees) and he is also the one who came up with the screenplay by adapting Alfred A. Haesler's book. The only cast member I have heard of before I think is Tina Engel and this is also only the case because I recently watched her Christa Klages film (von Trotta). This film was not only Switzerland's official submission to the Oscars for the Foreign Language Film category, but it is also one of the most successful Swiss film as it actually managed to get the nomination, but lost to the Hungarian submission by István Szabó starring Klaus Maria Brandauer.

But back to this movie here. It deals with the situation of immigration during World War II. As everybody with basic interest in politics knows, Switzerland was a neutral country all along and they chose the approach of saying that their boat is full which means it did not allow refugees or foreigners in general to enter and stay Switzerland without lots of bureaucracy going along with it. It was very difficult and this is also depicted in this movie here. The good thing is that it digs kinda deep in working on the Swiss history in the first half of the 20th century and it is not about making Switzerland look goo, but it is about depicting things the way they actually were, even if it may make Switzerland look not so good.

All in all, I cannot say I recommend the watch a whole lot. The characters were actually somewhat interesting early on, but the longer the film went the less interesting the characters and everything around them became. This is always pretty disappointing for me as it is probably my favorite period in history and I find it really interesting to see new aspects about this time, like it is done here about Switzerland. As a whole, I have to say that the film did not bring anything new really to the table that could be interesting to audiences outside of Switzerland too. I have seen many World War II / Nazi Germany films and this one here delivers nothing that was not done already in other projects (frequently better). I give it a thumbs-down. Not recommended. If you still want to see it, make sure you get subtitles. Even as a German native there are big parts that you won't understand otherwise because of the thick Swiss accent.