La Forteresse
The Fortress is a Swiss documentary about a weigh station for foreign refugees seeking asylum in Switzerland, and it manages not only to paint a clear picture of what a refugee has to go through to obtain Swiss residency, but it paints portraits of a few hopeful souls and the dramatic and often painful journeys their lives have taken to arrive at the Swiss border petitioning for refuge.
This is the only documentary I have seen at this year's festival, and I arrived thinking I was about to see a movie called Cold Souls with Paul Giamatti. I did see Giamatti standing outside of the Harvard Exit theater, signing a few autographs, but he did not appear in the Swiss documentary I screened.
There was no narration nor were there any interviews. The Fortress was shot entirely in the refugee center, and the filmmakers did a terrific job editing the film in such a way that the lives of the workers and refugees there were vivid and fully realized. The movie is fascinating and flows nicely. It was amusing that the couple behind me seemed to be unaware that The Fortress was a documentary. The man’s comment after the screening was, “There didn’t seem to be much of a plot.”
This is the only documentary I have seen at this year's festival, and I arrived thinking I was about to see a movie called Cold Souls with Paul Giamatti. I did see Giamatti standing outside of the Harvard Exit theater, signing a few autographs, but he did not appear in the Swiss documentary I screened.
There was no narration nor were there any interviews. The Fortress was shot entirely in the refugee center, and the filmmakers did a terrific job editing the film in such a way that the lives of the workers and refugees there were vivid and fully realized. The movie is fascinating and flows nicely. It was amusing that the couple behind me seemed to be unaware that The Fortress was a documentary. The man’s comment after the screening was, “There didn’t seem to be much of a plot.”
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