The Boat Is Full (1981) User Reviews

Challenges myths about Swiss wartime virtue

[howard.schumann · 8/10 · 3 July 2006]

In 1996 a panel was created called the Independent Commission of Experts headed by historian Jean Francois Bergier to study Switzerland's wartime past. The report of the Bergier Commission, though acknowledging the many refugees Switzerland accepted during 1940-45, condemned its wartime practices of deporting Jewish refugees (around 30,000) back to Germany, accusing Swiss officials of pursuing an inhumane policy at odds with the country's tradition of offering asylum to those facing persecution. A Swiss/Austrian/West German co-production, Markus Imhoof's striking drama The Boat is Full dramatizes this issue, challenging myths about Swiss wartime virtue and innocence.

Nominated for an Oscar in 1982 for Best Foreign Film, The Boat is Full is not widely known in the U.S. but it is one of the finest films dealing with the holocaust. In the film, a group of German Jewish refugees must pretend they are a family in order to be granted asylum in Switzerland (refugee families with children under 6 are allowed to remain in Switzerland) but are faced with the rigidity of small-minded bureaucrats who see it as their duty to uphold the letter of the law. As the film opens, a German train is halted because of a Swiss attempt to wall off the tunnel to close potential escape routes. Six people, four Jews, a French child, and a deserting German soldier jump off the train and seek refuge at a rural inn, run by a married couple Laurent and Franz Fluckiger (Renate Steiger and Mathias Gnadinger). It is only afterwards that they discover that the country maintains strict quotas and that they are in danger of being deported.

To survive, they pose as a family. Judith Kruger (Tina Engel), a young woman, pretends that she is the wife of Karl Schneider (Gerd David), a Nazi deserter, an elderly man from Vienna, Lazar Ostrowskij (Curt Bois) pretends to be her father, and a young boy (Simone Maruice), who can only speak French, pretends that he is a deaf mute. The scheme is threatened, however, when a hard-nosed constable comes to investigate and Judith's real husband escapes from a work camp and tries to find her. Though we do not know the protagonists on other than a surface level, The Boat is Full is still a powerful film that reminds us that rigidly supporting the letter of the law does not always mean adhering to its spirit, or understanding the personal consequences that may result.

Singular tragedies

[Mort-31 · 7/10 · 3 September 2001]

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.

Great concept horrible translation

[chrissso · 6/10 · 2 November 2015]

Perhaps … if they had added English subtitles to this film … and kept its original soundtrack … I would have liked it a lot more. But they didn't … they dubbed English over the existing film and did a horrible job of it!

There is a reason why the practice of overdubbing has been abandoned! The results typically destroy a film (remember all those Japanese Monster films of the 70's) and that is the case here. More so there seems to be a big problem with the translation or even the script … I kept thinking did he really say that???

I understand that the film is a "tiny budget" Swiss film from 1981 … but film making is an art … and this film fails artistically on many levels. It just seemed so amateur.

I also get that this was a courageous undertaking by the Director and Producer that angered many Swiss people. They challenge the notion … the remembrance … of Swiss neutrality … showing that it was quite different than what we see at the end of The Sound of Music. More so they illustrate the fact that Switzerland … albeit neutral … was in fact subservient to the Germans.

This is a film that can generate conversation … thus I give it a couple of extra stars … but as a film goes it stinks! 6/10

Demystification of one's own history

[hasosch · 10/10 · 14 April 2009]

The anxiety of an attack from Hitler-Germany was real in Switzerland during WW II. Why should Hilter not integrate German-speaking Switzerland into his "Reich" to which already belonged Germany and Austria? After all, the "Grossdeutsches Reich" was based on the common language spoken, so Northern Switzerland was considered once lost from the "Grossreich" like Mussolini considered the Italian speaking parts of Southern Switzerland as "terre irridente". Why Hitler did not conquer Switzerland stays one of the big enigmas of history up to today.

The Swiss population that lived close to the German border - in "Das Boot ist voll" it is Siblingen, Canton of Scaffusia - realized much more of what is going on on the other side of the river Rhein. Everyday immigrants crossed the Swiss border illegally. However, what did "illegal" mean in regard of immigrant-laws that had become criminal themselves? That the population must have reacted confused when it was confronted actually with a group of immigrants like the six persons in the movie, is clear. The wish to help them hide and feed them went along with the fear to be detected and to go to prison. The boat was not full, of course, and the title of the movie is cynically meant, but Switzerland did not want to provoke Germany by giving their Jewish population asylum.

I think, films like "The Boat is Full" are necessary, but not because Switzerland had loaded more guilt upon herself than other states during WW II did. The opposite is true. But Switzerland had started to construct a very strange self-image of alleged neutrality and interwoven it with her history back to Wilhelm Tell which consists exclusively of fairy-tales. Middle-aged people like me still had to learn in school that a handful of Swiss soldiers defeated "the Habsburgian army" in "battles" whose names do not even occur in Austrian history and are not even to find in Swiss geographic maps.

Tragic but powerful and deeply moving

[dbogosian-1 · 9/10 · 23 June 2009]

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.

Effective

[beatle1909 · 10/10 · 14 June 2007]

I hated most of the characters in this movie. I hated the ending. I had trouble sleeping after I saw the film. A movie that affected me this much, must be brilliant. It is! In all its aspects. Simple storytelling at its best. A shame, and a sin, that it is all true. And you know it cuts right to the bone, after you become aware, as to how the movie was shunned in Switzerland, and how all but one print of the film managed to survive, after its initial release. Thank you, thank you, thank you, to the filmmakers and actors that made the Boat is Full, a reality. I have seen quite a few films, relating to the Holocast, and this is by far the the most horrific. As I said before, simple, yet effective.

A small story in "Neutral" Switzerland during WWII

[Jonathan-18 · 16 April 1999]

Good span of characters, the movie lacks another storyline other than the couple hiding the refugees (and a little more, too little). It's too long for the little story it holds, while it does hint the characters have some more in them. Well acted, touching and haunting, is does light a different angle about Switzerland's neutrality- still being unraveled today in the news.

Fairly forgettable World War II movie

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 3 August 2016]

"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.

The Boat Is Full

[Coxer99 · 15 July 1999]

Slow moving film from Switzerland that takes place during WWII where six people seek refuge in a village inn, much to the discomfort of the couple who runs the place. The group attempts to pose as a family, but their plans are thwarted. Although there are wonderful performances from Engel and Bois, as two Jews, the story doesn't stay strong enough to last the almost two hours running time. Oscar nominated for Best Foreign Language Film of 1981.