Eine mysteriöse EPIDEMIE ist ausgebrochen.

A movie set in the woods or mountains*

“Anderntags hat man sofort getauft, weil jede Mutter lieber ein «Gotteskindli» auf die Arme nahm.”

– Gisler-Arnold Babette, midwife (via)

Murer describes the people from Switzerland's gorges in three movements, along the lines of a symphony

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for November is, again, not date-based, but follows a sloppy schmaltzy all-American Thanksgiving-y narrative. Trying to make it work my way.

[A favourite] Alien [“alien”?] movie*

 

Three segments envision the future of the Swiss Confederation. In the Fredi M. Murer instalment 2069 – oder wo sich Futorologen und Archäologen gute Nacht sagen, an alien visits surveillance state Switzerland. The visitor in question is designed by H.R. Giger, and glimpses of the XX121 xenomorph are present in its exoskeletal core.

 

* the Bales 2025 Film Challenge for October is horror-themed as opposed to date-based, and is all about favourites. Expect non-horror and films I believe to be relevant instead.

Grauzone takes place in one of the three spaces documented in Murer's beautifully titled documentary Wir Bergler in den Bergen sind eigentlich nicht schuld, daß wir da sind [We, the mountain people, who live in the mountains are not really to blame for being there] (1974). One valley lives in tune with its natural rhythm, the second experiences a transition to modernity.

Sie fallen unerwartet in einem traumlosen Schlaf.

The third space, the “grey zone” – both this film's title and a descriptive term for an undefined neutral zone – is where the Bergler have become technology dwellers, where they live on summits made of concrete instead of rock. Where rumours about a #pandemic stir an ancient, unnamed fear. And symptoms: the sudden urge to wander out in nature, an acute melancholy, an overall hyper awareness. A young, prosperous couple become infected and pick up secret radio transmissions. What they believed was concrete, solid, immovable, suddenly shows signs of a shift.