Calais: The Last Border (2003)

Marc Isaacs' documentary film Calais: The Last Border is a well-made and important documentary about present-day Europe. He follows a diverse group of individuals in Calais, he lets them talk, he shows us the surrounding that shapes their lives. Isaacs refrains from big gestures or slogans, this is the big strength of the film. One of the people Isaacs interviews is a man who hopes to cross the canal, to live a decent life in England. He knows he hardly stands a chance, but he nurses some kind of hope, trying to keep up the spirit. Isaacs also talks to a bar-owner from England who has settled down, at least for a while, even though business doesn't look too bright. Business problem is also the focus of the interview with an elderly businesswoman who tries to cope with economic problems. Not only does Isaacs make us attend to these individual persons, he also evokes this transitory city, Calais, in which most people seem to be moving on, somewhere, but where a lot of people have found themselves stuck against their will. But Isaacs doesn't let the film succumb to mute depression, there is plenty of life here (even in the repeated image of a man waiting for a bus that never comes, scenes take take on an almost Beckettian feel, but without losing any of their sense of ordinary despair), he shows how things change, not always for the better, and how people deal with that. If you want to see a very everyday portrait of European migration - watch this.