Beresina
Or
Die Letzte Tagen der Schweiz
The Last Days of Switzerland
a film review
*contains spoilers in the form of an over-elaborate description of the plot and the meanings therein. In other words, if you enjoy surprises. Don’t read this. See the movie, and then read it. and upvote this. Yeah, that’s it And… oh yeah. If you actually find this film… let me know where you found it. I don’t know where to find it. I saw it at a film festival.*
Nationalistic arrogance caused by
ignorance enjoys a special prevalence in the
United States. Daniel Schmid aims at just this sort of thinking with Beresina, not among
Americans, but the
Swiss. Although he uses
Switzerland as his
scapegoat to this end, the film maintains a
universal feeling that could be applied to any over nationalistic set of
ideals. With a light, well-running plot and dark (as well as innocent)
humor throughout, he strikes his mark as well as the various bullets that fly towards the end of the film.
Switzerland is a charming
country, with the beauty of the Alps and the heaps of money piled up through a long-standing
non-involvement policy, and Irena is convinced that she's moving in for good. The high-class
call girl, fresh out of
Russia, is completely naïve with regards to basically
everything except the
world’s oldest profession. Her
employer, a high caliber fashion designer, arranges
appointments with the
cocoa butter of
Switzerland's social
chocolate. Bank
presidents,
Television network heads,
generals, and powerful lawyers are just a few of her clients. Though very few of these people actually take full advantage of her services, (choosing instead to unload burdens on her or engage in various pseudo-sexual
perversions such as asking her to
pose or
licking her feet) they attempt to screw her in a wholly different way, promising her craved
citizenship while truly planning to grant her nothing of the sort.
Irena has complete trust in her "many friends who help me and give me money" as she writes of them to her
family, in
innocent letters. She takes it upon herself to
lubricate her way into Schweizerstaatsburgerschaft by learning
everything she can about Swiss
history. She visits
museums and learns spirited
patriotic songs, all the while promising her
family that they can soon move in with her. Through Irena's spirited
self-education we find that she really isn't stupid at all, just extremely
enchanted with the idea of
the promised land, a notion of
Switzerland as a
paradise that the
director himself
professes to have had as a child.
Not all the characters in the film take
advantages of Irena's notions, though. One of her clients, a general, becomes one of her
best friends and shows her
military secrets such as the hidden,
underground base in the Alps. "This is where the
soldiers would have gone if
Hitler's troops came over our border." "To hide?" "Ahem erm! No. No. To stand in readiness, of course!" He spends most of his
appointment time with her
play-acting his part in a
secret coup-system set up among the old Swiss
military, something which has been around for
quite sometime. (the general himself is pretty old). Naturally Irena understands nothing of this but she's glad to play along with him as he asks her if she's (target name here) and then shoots her with blanks when she answers
affirmatively. He
promises to marry her, should she not get her
citizenship in time by other means. While she's
cramming her head full of Swiss history Irena meets a maid, a woman who once acquired her
citizenship in the very same job as Irene's. She serves as a sort of guardian angel for
Irena, guiding her through the treachery of the Swiss
aristocracy. (During various conversational sessions in which they ply themselves with hard liquor) One of the
big wigs from a Swiss television company also attempts to disillusion Irena (after he climbs out of bed with her). She tells him of her friends who will help her to become a Swiss citizen and he assures her they have no such
intentions.
Yet Irena remains determined to get her prize, even when she's
blackmailed for it by the lawyer and her employer, who compel her to
eavesdrop on her clients so they can find out if any of them have anything to do with a recent money-laundering scandal involving an Italian criminal. When the lawyer tells her that some of her clients could be a threat to
Swiss security, she retorts that they're Swiss also and he replies with one of the most humorous lines in the film, "Every
Schweitzer is a threat to
Switzerland.” The maid helps her through this, however, by talking her out of her moral aversion to
lying. When Irena tells the lawyer that the Italian criminal is in the
hunting lodge of a certain client, he turns out to be there, in fact.
When some of the
involved officials, (one of them says himself, "Money is money, wherever it comes from." Apparently one of the
director’s pet peeves among the
attitudes of the Swiss banks and government) who are, probably, also her
clients, hear about it, she receives a notice that she's to leave the
country within fourteen days. Naturally she's
distressed and resolves to
marry the general
right away, until the maid informs her that he's already married. In
despair, she wanders to the general's house, guzzling the favorite
hard liquor of the maid and
swallowing a bottle of pills. But the
general is out visiting his nursing-home bound wife. She clutches his hat in
desperation and swallows the last of the pills when she notices a phone number written inside it. She calls it and says the watchwords that she's heard the general repeat so many times before passing out.
The coup system, though rusty, works
perfectly and the top officials in the Swiss
government, along with the banking heads and the media leaders are all assassinated, each by a different member of the general's "Cobras". (The general himself, thinking someone else set the call in motion when he wasn't home runs out to shoot his target before realizing that he didn't change the blanks. Thus the target
assassinates him instead, pulling a loaded pistol out of a drawer and finishing the general before that bewildered "oh shit, forgot the bullets!" look leaves his face. Among the massive humor of these scenes is also a subtle message that the top seats in any government or market aren't as
immovable as they might seem.
Schmid completes his hilarious mockery of the Swiss power structure with the most outrageous touch. When the cobras storm (well, hobble. One of them in a wheelchair even) into the general's house to find Irena there, alive and well, if a little bit hung over. (she had chosen
ginseng for her
suicide drug) As soon as they find out she put the call in
motion, they inform her that Switzerland is under their control, secured for her. And so it cuts into the
coronation scene as she becomes
Königen der Schweiz,
surpassing her greatest dreams by far, complete with humorous flags of the
Swiss crest imposed on the image of a
cobra.
Schmid sends a serious message with all this humor, one which sticks due to the fun of it all. He seems to contend that the puffed-up
egos,
corruption, and
arrogance of the Swiss upper-strata could lead to serious
consequences, though probably nothing so injuring to their pride as being replaced with a very confused
auslander. Even with his strong
criticism, you can see that Schmid has an obvious love for his land. Many of the shots
illustrate the
beauty of the
Alps or other
interesting and
lovely aspects of
Swiss land and
culture. So every country or culture has its good things of which to be proud, but none is
flawless.