South of the Clouds

Colour, 35 mm
Switzerland, France, 2003, 78 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

Every year a group of farmers sets out from the Swiss mountains on a joint excursion. This year their men’s outing will be somewhat extended because they want to go by train via Berlin, Moscow and Ulan Bator to Beijing. Seventy-year-old Adrien unwillingly decides to go after his whole herd has to be put down because of illness. However, the old gents gradually give up the journey – full of surprises and unexpected experiences – and return home. Only Adrien, who has never married and who has nothing to live for, reaches the goal. His journey takes him further than Beijing, to somewhere in the Chinese countryside where they organise traditional bullfights, like those in Switzerland. In this distant land, and in “his own environment”, the lonely old man comes to terms with his life... The filmmakers have used unlikely characters for their road-movie: old men, tired and neglected papas from the back of beyond. The indifferent foreign surroundings universally reflect their feelings of a vainly lived life. The tourist attractions of the big cities are played down and the story mostly takes place in railway stations, side streets, hotel rooms and train compartments. The film took the Youth Jury Award at the IFF in Locarno.

About the director

Jean-François Amiguet (b. 1950, Vevey) graduated in political science from Lausanne University. Filmography (feature films): Alexandre (1983; script, direction, production); Lounge Chair (La Méridienne, 1988, script and direction); the extensive documentary Le Film du cinéma suisse (1991, joint direction); L’Ecrivain public (1993, script and direction); the episode L’écharpe rouge from the five-part fictional television documentary Festival Stories (Histoires de fête,2000, direction); South of the Clouds (Au sud des nuages, 2003, direction).