The Eleven Films About Refugees You Need To See
They're less depressing than the real thing.
Casablanca (1942)
If you haven’t seen it, or haven’t seen it recently, one of the greatest of all Hollywood films remains, among many other things, a surprisingly hard-nosed portrait of life in wartime, especially for those fleeing Nazi occupation. The “tortuous, roundabout trail of refugees” culminates in the film’s stylised Morocco; some can afford exit visas from the black marketeers (who, of course, gather every night at Rick’s Café). “But the others wait in Casablanca… and wait… and wait.”
Despite the Golden Age sheen, the story of the Czech (read: Jewish) underground leader and his Norwegian lover trying to escape to the States and the burnt-out American mercenary who secretly helps them must have been a bit unnerving for audiences watching it at the war’s peak. In and around the rousing action and classic romance lie edgy references to invading fascist armies, the legacy of colonialism, secret police, torture, genocide, desperate asylum seekers and – of course – people smugglers.