Bonfire (film)

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Movie
German title Bonfire
Original title Bonfire
Country of production Switzerland , Germany
original language Swiss German
Publishing year 1985
length 118 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Fredi M. Murer
script Fredi M. Murer
production Bernard Lang, Rex film
music Mario Beretta
camera Pio Corradi
cut Helena Gerber
occupation

Höhenfeuer is a film by the Swiss filmmaker Fredi M. Murer from 1985. It is his best known and the second most successful Swiss film of the 1980s.

In slow and powerful images and with brief dialogues , Murer tells the story of a family living in isolation, which in its consequence is reminiscent of a Greek tragedy .

The film has repeatedly been voted the best Swiss film “of all time”.

content

A family of mountain farmers lives on a remote farm in Central Switzerland: father, mother, daughter Belli and their son Bub, who has been deaf since birth, both young. Belli would have liked to become a teacher, but has to teach her brother. The mother's parents live on the opposite side of the valley, and communication takes place with binoculars and a simple system of symbols. There are no neighbors.

As punishment for an act committed in adolescent high spirits, the boy is banished by his father to a high alp, which he develops into his own kingdom. When his sister visits him there, they become lovers.

The boy comes back to the yard, looks for and finds his sister's proximity again. When Belli's pregnancy becomes apparent, it comes to a catastrophe: The father dies at the boy's hand, the mother follows him. Belli and the boy lay the dead parents in a grave in the snow, hang a soot-blackened sheet in front of the house as a message for the grandparents, make the parents' bed and take on the work on the yard that has remained the same for centuries.

Reviews

“An ethnologically precise film that describes everyday life in mountain farmers in a sensitive, impressive way, far from any postcard idyll” (Catholic Film Commission for Germany). The “irritation that one cannot do justice to this existence between the hermetic mountains with the knowledge and wisdom of a self-assured life, makes the astonishing dimension of the film” ( Franz Everschor ). With his story of “speechless life in the mountains” ( Die Welt , February 1, 1986), Murer “blurred the line between experimental and feature film with a stroke of genius” ( Andreas Kilb ).

Authoritative interpretation

Murer makes a reference to ancient tragedy. He also always “squared away the sky, cut away the mountain peaks” and thus opposed the “chocolate image attitude”. In one shot, the farm rises like an island out of a sea of ​​clouds, to which Murer says, "This story could happen anywhere between Iceland and Japan".

successes

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The 500 most successful Swiss films from 1976 to 2016. Federal Statistical Office , March 15, 2017, accessed on September 20, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Matthias Lerf: The “Höhenfeuer” glows and glows . In: Sunday newspaper . August 7, 2011 ( aeppli.ch [PDF]).
  3. ↑ fko / sda: The best Swiss film of all time . In: Tages-Anzeiger . November 30, 2014 ( tagesanzeiger.ch ).
  4. ^ Catholic Film Commission for Germany: Höhenfeuer. Commission opinion . In: film service . tape 39 , no. 4 , February 25, 1986, p. 82 ( filmdienst.de ).
  5. ^ Franz Everschor: Höhenfeuer. Critic's opinion . In: film service . tape 39 , no. 4 , February 25, 1986, p. 81–82 , here p. 82 ( filmportal.de ).
  6. ↑ Andreas Kilb: The day after childhood . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . No. 29/1986 , February 4, 1986, pp. 26 .
  7. ↑ Wolfram Knorr: Sibling love in the archaic of reality ; Otto Reiter: Interview with Fredi M. Murer, Viennale 16./17. March 1986 . Both in: Stadtkino [Vienna] program . No. 90, 1986.

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