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maltatoday SUNDAY 22 OCTOBER 2017 40 This Week "WE'RE deprived of freedom in a free country," one of the protago- nists of Fernand Melgar's 2011 documentary Special Flight la- ments. It's a painful and resonant statement that just about succeeds in encapsulating the plight of the subjects of this lucid, pin-sharp film, soon to be screened locally as part of the Rima Film Festival. The "free country" in question is Switzerland, and the deprivation of freedoms happens at the Fram- bois prison just outside Geneva. This is where migrants hailing from a number of countries – from Kosovo to Africa – are put into detention after the state has decided they no longer deserve to walk the streets of Switzerland freely; despite the fact that some of them have established families in the country, and even lived there upwards of twenty years. Unless legal aid allows them a lucky strike at convincing the powers-that-be to reverse their initial decision, al- lowing them to resume their lives in Switzerland, all of the detainees of the facility will eventually be flown back to their home coun- tries – never mind that some of them have forged their identities in Switzerland, and that returning to their supposed 'home' coun- tries could even get them killed. Some of them will have the dubi- ous good fortune of being allowed to travel back on a regular flight. Others, however, will be relegated to the 'Special Flight' – during which they are bound and bagged for 'maximum security' in what is a perilous journey back into un- certainty. Gaining admirable access into the facility, Melgar then proceeds to deliver up what is both a fas- cinating fly-on-the-wall portrait of the sheer absurdity of the ar- bitrary and compassion-free ap- proach to the migration adopted by the Swiss establishment, while also giving space to the migrants in question to express themselves and their situation. The resultant film is a heady mix of tragicomedy and grim reality, resulting in a film with a heart- breaking trajectory that implores us to never forget the immedi- ate needs of human beings of all stripes and nationalities, no mat- ter how tangled the politics of mi- gration may be, or how threaten- ing the supposed dangers of 'mass migration' may appear from the outside. Melgar's degree of access is, once again, the crucial kicker here. While Frambois is certainly no Guantanamo, and the per- ceived ethical robustness of its director and staff may just be the reason why Melgar got the access he did in the first place, neither do its day-to-day operations and overarching legal logic allow it to be painted in a terribly flattering light. A limbo state in every sense of the word, the place is run by bu- reaucrats who like to think of themselves as being compassion- ate. They will insist that this is not a prison, even though its detainees can never venture into the outside world and must be locked back up in their cells by 9pm each night. However, Melgar's film never paints the staff as villains; they simply come across as all-too- human cogs in a deeply inhumane machine. Either convinced of the correctness of their job or will- fully ignorant of its contradictions and insidious cruelty, they plod on regardless, some of them striking cordial, even warm relationships with the detainees. The air of mu- tual respect that is cultivated be- tween them is both encouraging (there is no recourse to violence or other nastiness from either 'side') and deeply upsetting (the idea that both, caged as they are by their situations and jobs, are soon made comfortable by that cage). Given the chance to speak, how- ever, the migrants themselves do put the paradoxes and injustices of the system into stark relief. One of the most remarkable aspects of the documentary is the character arcs that emerge. With an atten- tion to narrative rhythm worthy of a fictional feature film, Melgar succeeds in taking us on various journeys for the migrant protago- nists. A climactic scene in which an Af- rican husband and father, threat- ened with deportation on the flimsiest grounds, rails against a simpering 'head of security' whose shriveled frame and bug-eyed stare would not be out of place in a Coen Brothers film, will remain seared in my memory forever. Special Flight will be screened as part of the Rima Film Festival on October 27. 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