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

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.