My first mountain, a Rigi film

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Movie
Original title My first mountain, a Rigi film
Country of production Switzerland
Publishing year 2012
length 97 minutes
Rod
Director Erich Langjahr
script Erich Langjahr
production Langjahr-Film GmbH
music Hans Kennel ,
Betty Legler
Andreas Ambühl ,
Hans Hassler ,
Marc Unternährer
camera Erich Langjahr
cut Erich Langjahr
occupation

Martel Schindler

My first mountain, a Rigi film is a feature documentary from 2012 by Swiss director Erich Langjahr .

content

The Rigi as the center of the world: Erich Langjahr begins his film with a map from the Middle Ages, which is told from the first person. For the Central Swiss, the Rigi is the epitome of the mountains. Here he is deeply rooted, his long-standing fascination for the mountains originates from this place. At lofty heights, climbers install a mighty Swiss flag on the flank of the Rigi, which is rolled up again at the end of the film. In between there are two entrances to the Rigi: one looking back and one looking out, a way of life of the ancestors and the present. The Alpine Märtel Schindler stands between these two times. He cultivates the alp with laborious manual labor, but is also out and about with a chainsaw and cement mixer. He builds an alpine hut over the seasons. The audience will also encounter Swiss customs, which are still extensively celebrated on the Rigi. But Asian tourists are already there with cameras and the signs of modernity are increasingly prevalent. The transmitter mast on the Rigi can be seen oversized. The train has been transporting tourists up the mountain since the 19th century, and the number is growing. A new wellness center designed by the architect Mario Botta is being built on the Rigi Kaltbad . The leisure society has also found its way here.

reception

The film received a lot of attention both in Switzerland and internationally and was shown at numerous small and large festivals. On the occasion of the 15th edition of the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival (BAFICI), “My First Mountain, a Rigi Film” was presented as part of a retrospective of the mountain films by Erich Langjahr together with “ Men in the Ring ”, “ Shepherd's Journey into the Third Millennium ” and “ The legacy of the mountain people »presented.

In the catalog of the International Documentary Film Festival in Leipzig in 2012, Grit Lemke wrote: Precision and soul unite again. (...) “My first mountain” becomes a hymn to what is sacred to us (even in a secularized world) - and to Switzerland, this strange, distant planet.

In 2012, Christian Jungs wrote about the film in the NZZ am Sonntag : The longer “My First Mountain” lasts, the more intense it becomes. Erich Langjahr is the Clint Eastwood of the Swiss doc-film: without loquacity and dramatic frills, but with basic trust in his subject and his craft, he quits someone who remains traditionalist undeterred by fashion trends.

On the cinema platform Cineman, Geri Krebs wrote in his film review in 2012: Completely without dialogues, but always with an extremely refined sensorium for even the finest shades of noises, sounds and rhythms from the environment, Erich Langjahr developed here in collaboration with the musician Hans Kennel and some others a freely and clearly structured carpet of images and sounds. With very simple elements, such as the rhythmic sound of the hammering of huge fence posts or the radio tower on Rigi Kulm, which repeatedly marks the center of the picture, “My First Mountain” manages to maintain an arc of suspense that, according to common criteria, is what makes a film “ nothing happens »is simply great. Only an experienced cineast as Erich Langjahr could dare to make such a formally radical film and not be bored for a moment.

Festival screenings

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://www.swissfilms.ch/de/events_programmes/news/-/id_news/5052
  2. ↑ BAFICI: Caminos de montaña. 2013, accessed August 19, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Grit Lemke: Catalog . Documentary Film Festival, Leipzig 2012.
  4. ^ Christian boys: A man on the mountain: My first mountain. (Switzerland 2012) 85 min. Director, camera and editing: Erich Langjahr. In: NZZ am Sonntag . November 25, 2012.
  5. ↑ Geri Krebs: My first mountain, a Rigi film. October 2012, accessed August 26, 2020 .