Swiss German

Robert Horton wrote:
Alpine Fire is as heady and intoxicating as the thin mountain air of the Alps in which it takes place. The entire film is set far above the rest of the world, and the isolated location influences both the characters and the film style.

The exact location is a lonely home pitched on the side of a mountain. Communication with neighbors is done with signs and binoculars; other people may be miles away, on the slope of the next Alp. The time is the present, but the home has no television or telephone, and it seems remote in many ways.Read More »

Café Odeon
At the Coffeeshop at the Bellevue in Zurich, where artists, Poets and easy women hang out, Leni shows up. A girl from the country side. Her husband is in jail, and she is looking for her sister Anni. Since the latter is taking off to Milan with her “friend”, Leni lives in her apartment. She frequently meets the high school teacher Prof Kartmann. When he begins to withdraw from her because his wife begins to suspect an affair, Leni takes up a position in the local Café. She decides to return to her village in oder to wait there for her husband, who, in the meantime, has escaped from the penitentiary.

A Swiss film in the style of the italian Neo-Realism.Read More »

“A mysterious lonely man and a young rebel woman, confront each other in a psychological drama about suspended identity…”Read More »

In a remote Alpine village isolated from the outside world, young love is put to the test. Anna comes from the village and has a daughter from an earlier relationship, while Marco is an outsider from the flatlands hired by the mountain farmers to work the rugged land. Together they experience the joy of new love and the closeness of family. But when Marco suddenly starts losing control over his impulses and behaving erratically, a new tension rises in the community. Through the changing seasons and the harshness of life, Anna fights to preserve a love she believes can outshine even death.Read More »

Synopsis: Writer/Director Clemens Klopfenstein’s beautiful and profound movie Macao focuses on a married couple, Swiss linguists, who hike the Alps searching for rare words still uttered by rural populations. When on his way to a conference, the husband’s plane goes down over the ocean. The wife is advised to give up hope of ever seeing him alive, but her heart tells her otherwise. When he comes ashore on a tropical island-warm blue water, sun on white sands, palm trees-he and the other survivor, the plane’s pilot, are greeted by the smiling dark-skinned native speaking the island’s language. Back home, she waits to hear word from the search team; on the island, he learns a few words of the native language while he awaits rescue…Read More »

Synopsis: The painter Balz, who sits jealously in Italy and harasses Clara, the actress, by telephone because of a lover. Balz wishes the rival all bad – and promptly he falls unhappily on his nose. When he succeeds in closing his mouth with a simple and very understandable wish, as required by his girlfriend, who has meanwhile arrived with him and is constantly babbling, the Italian driver realises that it is a brandy that helps his evil desires to come true. But she also discovers a magic potion that gives her the strength to transform things, day in night for example. She takes pleasure in taking advantage of it when Balz is at the wheel.Read More »

The Misused Love Letters was one of the most popular Swiss films in the 40s.

It tells the story of a merchant from the town of Seldwyla, called Viktor Störteler. He has a passion for literature and rather fancies himself as a poet, although his poetry is mediocre at best. While away on business, he asks his wife to send him a daily love letter. His wife Gritli however is not to keen on this idea and ask the young teacher Wilhelm to write her love letters instead. Wilhelm does so, but believes himself to be the addressee of the letters. Viktor comes to know of their little scheme when he returns and gets offended. As a result he takes a momentous decision, that will have consequences for all parties involved…Read More »

In a suburb of Zurich, Alice is working at a call centre and very successful at selling internet subscriptions and insurance. She also uses her powers of persuasion to criminal ends: she cajoles and robs solitary grandmothers by telling them she is their granddaughter and urgently needs money. In no time she makes herself a small fortune but, without knowing it, her actions influence the lives of countless local people, from bank staff and police officers to unsuspecting passers-by.Read More »

Quote:
Aloys Adorn is a middle aged private detective who lives and works with his father. He experiences life from a safe distance, through a video camera he keeps recording 24 hours a day, and the massive collection of surveillance tapes he organizes and obsessively watches at home. But when his father dies, Aloys is left on his own and his sheltered existence begins to fall apart. After a night of heavy drinking, Aloys wakes up on a public bus to find that his camera and precious observation tapes have been stolen. Soon after, a mysterious woman calls to blackmail him. She offers to return the tapes if Aloys will try an obscure Japanese invention called ‘telephone walking’ with her, using his imagination as their only connection. As he is drawn deeper and deeper, falling in love with the voice on the other end of the phone, the woman opens up a new universe that may allow Aloys to break out of his isolation and into the real world.Read More »