Madeleine, who runs a disco on the French-Swiss border, dreams of going to Paris to pursue a singing career. Her lover, Paul, who makes his living smuggling money, gold and goods across the border, plans to emigrate to Canada. Mali, a pretty young Algerian woman who lives in France and works in Switzerland, would like to be anywhere except where she is. Louis, born on a Swiss farm and trained as a clockmaker, would give anything to leave his mistress, Lucie, and move in with Mali.
France
France
A film that is filled with this sense of evil and small pettiness, but also style. A film that in the style of Alain Tanner, we don't always understand where these characters are going to.
I watched this story of smugglers operating on the border of Switzerland and France because I was feeling nostalgic for Romandy. Verdant rolling hills and tinkling cowbells acting as backdrop for the rustic decay of architecture and people. Buildings and psyches going to seed. Exactly what I wanted. It hit the spot. Not much to recommend or remember here other than the atmosphere, and I enjoyed it mainly because I had a personal connection.
Less familiar to me were the border checkpoints of this pre-Schengen world. Nowadays, crossing the border between France and Switzerland is as easy as crossing a state line in the U.S. There certainly aren't any cavity searches.
This was the first film I've seen by recently departed Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner. No Man's Land has a strong sense of atmosphere, but the characters were not as engaging as I'd have liked.
I don't suppose David Lynch was ever in these parts, or saw Monsieur Tanner's movie, but at times this tale of Swiss border impropriety does feel a bit like a proto 'Twin Peaks'. With a disco on the edge of town, smuggling in the woods and the omnipresent ringing of cow bells. Cue apparently unmotivated dolly shot...
The factory is closing down and everyone wants to get out. All except our young protagonist Jean. He's a watch maker turned shit shoveler, who likes to ride his pushbike and fall in love. Me? I'm just enamoured with 1980's Switzerland and the director's dreamy didacticism. Not to mention a Terry Riley score.
Five characters on the Swiss-French border. They become involved in petty smuggling, then things get more serious and the police begin to close in. But this is not a Crime Film, certainly not a thriller, it is an Alain Tanner film. The characters have very serious conversations, have little humour. They constantly complain of being tired, most want to escape their world. Paul (Hugues Quester), a mechanic, is training for his pilot’s licence and dreams of flying over Canada. His lover, Madeleine (Myriam Mezieres), who runs a bar, dreams of being a singer in Paris. Jean (Jean-Phillippe Ecoffey), is trained as a watch maker, but is now unemployed, working occasionally on his parents’ farm – he wants to stay in…
When a character puts on a pair of Mickey Mouse-ears in the middle of an argument with her hubby you know this was workshopped to death. You can feel it, and can’t unsee it in all subsequent scenes. That’s the kind of film this is, with very earnest performances and straight faces in absurd situations. Very much an un-edgy 80s European artfilm for the masses, and like many of those produced by Marin Karmitz (the best part of this might be the very very 80s computerized MK-logo at the start).
ในประเด็นของการหนีข้ามประเทศและดิ้นรนเลี้ยงชีวิต หนังเคลื่อนผ่านกลุ่มตัวละครที่เกี่ยวกระหวัดข้ามซ้อนกันไปมาทั้งความสัมพันธ์ทางกายภาพและจิตภาพ ภายใต้ฉากและบรรยากาศของบ้านเมืองห่างไกลปนชวนพิศวง
Set in the shadowy borderlands between France and Switzerland, and centred on a group of low-rent smugglers who move jewellery, money and people across national lines, this has a nice mood of liminal despair despite some creaky qualities. There's a dodgy nightclub, an 80s synth score, and mysterious criminals lurking behind the scenes; the elements are there for an intriguing film, but it's all somehow less than the sum of its parts. The Swiss cows are perhaps the real heroes, but then I can see them out my window.
