I watched this movie on a flight over Atlantic. I had plenty of time, and an impressive choice of movies of all kind. I didn't know anything about this particular movie (as was the case with many others in the selection). I saw that the language was Romansh. This made me eager to see the movie immediately. My information about Romansh was scarce and a bit contradictory and I wanted to understand more the thing. In the movie the language appeared to me like a mix of Italian and German (or maybe some dialects / neighboring idioms), with a few words that were sounding strangely similar to their correspondents in Romanian. Well, I couldn't say that I increased my knowledge in this domain, but anyway it was my first contact with the idiom spoken in the Engadine region.
Now leaving aside my interest for Romansh and the whole group of Rhaetian languages, the movie was very interesting per se, very well made, with a good balance, having a point that was subtly followed.
A village someplace in the Engadine region, surrounded by woods and mountains, everybody knows anybody, a traditional universe of traditional families. The husbands are passionate by hunting and enjoy a beer or two in the evening, the wives keep the household, all of them attend the mass on Sunday morning. Traditional ways: very soon we can see that tradition has its limits, keeping unsolved some abnormal realities. It's a comedy, so it's not about gender identity or abusive behavior, that kind of things. Just the fact that the husbands, for one or another reason, don't fulfill properly their sexual responsibilities anymore. Various reasons: one of them has a secret affair, another one practices intercourse in the missionary position just once a week, after the Sunday mass. As I said, it's a comedy: the women start to take attitude, and the guy who coalesces the women will be no other than the new priest (who came from India, as the Catholic Church in Europe lacks sacerdotal vocations more and more). A priest from India, advising the women (and subsequently their men) to read Kama Sutra, in order to get the full picture. And little by little, the husbands (along with their wives) begin to realize what's expected from them in a normal (rather than traditional) universe.
Now leaving aside my interest for Romansh and the whole group of Rhaetian languages, the movie was very interesting per se, very well made, with a good balance, having a point that was subtly followed.
A village someplace in the Engadine region, surrounded by woods and mountains, everybody knows anybody, a traditional universe of traditional families. The husbands are passionate by hunting and enjoy a beer or two in the evening, the wives keep the household, all of them attend the mass on Sunday morning. Traditional ways: very soon we can see that tradition has its limits, keeping unsolved some abnormal realities. It's a comedy, so it's not about gender identity or abusive behavior, that kind of things. Just the fact that the husbands, for one or another reason, don't fulfill properly their sexual responsibilities anymore. Various reasons: one of them has a secret affair, another one practices intercourse in the missionary position just once a week, after the Sunday mass. As I said, it's a comedy: the women start to take attitude, and the guy who coalesces the women will be no other than the new priest (who came from India, as the Catholic Church in Europe lacks sacerdotal vocations more and more). A priest from India, advising the women (and subsequently their men) to read Kama Sutra, in order to get the full picture. And little by little, the husbands (along with their wives) begin to realize what's expected from them in a normal (rather than traditional) universe.
