(Originally reviewed Feb. 14, 2022)
Swiss writer-director Michael Koch displays a keen eye for jaw-dropping landscapes and natural wonders, but less for character and narrative, in his second feature, A Piece of Sky (Drii Winter), set in a remote farming community high up in the Alps. Gorgeously shot in the box-like Academy ratio and employing a cast of non-actors, this Berlin competition title works best when it uses a documentary-like approach to explore a world few of us have access to, chronicling members of an isolated agricultural community that persist under tough conditions at ungodly altitudes. But when it attempts to fictionalize their lives into a gloomy tale of love, sickness, abuse and possible redemption, it falters, sticking us with two rather inert leads and relying on pompous art film techniques — such as a singing, Greek tragedy-style chorus — that fail to make the medicine go down easily.
Dipping into a cinematic toolbox inspired by Bresson, Dreyer, the Dardennes and probably Bruno Dumont, actor-turned director Koch, whose 2016 debut Marija premiered in Locarno, delivers a highly austere brand of filmmaking that doesn’t always fit well with the material. He tries to depict a few years in the lives of two youngish people who fall deeply in love and then fall apart, but his methods are so severe and remote that his film remains as icy as the snowy peaks where much of the story takes place.
We know little, and learn precious little more, about the couple Anna (Michèle Brand) and Marco (Simon Wisler), except that one is a local girl who runs a bar and hotel and has a child, Julia, from a previous relationship, while the other is a hulking presence of a man who hails from the “lowlands” — a fact the other villagers in their Alpine town remark upon with a fair amount of disdain.
It’s hard to say why, exactly, Anna is so infatuated with Marco, who utters roughly twenty words throughout the entire movie, half of them barely audible. But the two get hitched and are perhaps planning on having a child of their own when things gradually turn sour. The already taciturn Marco begins experiencing mood swings, and is otherwise incapable of containing his impulses, particularly sexual ones. After he suffers a motorcycle accident, a doctor informs him that he has a brain tumor, from which point on things only get worse, including a highly disturbing incident involving Julia.
Considering that they hardly communicate with each other or anyone else, Koch doesn’t exactly give us two people whose many ups and downs — with much more of the latter than the former — manage to grip or move us in a commanding way. The director basically asks that we bear witness to dark events beyond anyone’s control, including the characters themselves (the Greek chorus suggests that these are fates to be endured, handed down from on high) and we have no choice but to dig in and suffer alongside them.
If Anna, with her desire to make things work at all costs, maintains more of a human presence, there’s something bovine-like about the massive, gentle Marco, who appears more attached to the cattle he tends to than to the people around him. This is something Koch seems to deliberately underline at times, such as in one sequence that cuts from a bull mounting a cow from behind to a scene of Marco trying to get busy with Anna at the back of her bar. Or another where Marco despairingly leads an aging cow to the slaughterhouse, in what feels like a moment of foreboding.
If A Piece of Sky (whose Swiss German title translates to the more dour Third Winter) reflects on how humans and animals are both creatures subjected to the cruel laws of nature , it’s not quite enough for a riveting watch, even if Anna’s efforts to stick by Marco’s side provide a slight dose of compassion. But the film otherwise remains obstinately distant from its subjects, choosing to look at them as if they were under a microscope rather than in a way that feels personal.
What does engage the viewer’s attention, and then some, is the film’s pristine and mastered aesthetic, from the stunning cinematography by Armin Dierolf to the sleek sound design by Tobias Koch, who composed the music along with Matthias Lempert. The visuals are so strong at times — a shot of bales of hay arriving by zip-line out of the mountain mist is truly unforgettable — that one wonders whether Koch could have made a more impactful movie simply by documenting life in such an isolated and alluring location, without adding any fictional elements at all. Alas, this may be a question for the gods as well.
Director, screenplay: Michael Koch
Cast: Michèle Brand, Simon Wisler, Elin Zgraggen, Daniela Barmettler
Producer: Christof Neracher
Cinematography: Armin Dierolf
Production design, costume design: Sara Giancane
Editing: Florian Riegel
Music: Tobias Koch, Jannik Giger
Sound: Tobias Koch, Matthias Lempert
Production companies: HugoFilm Features (Switzerland)
World sales: New Europe Film Sales
Venue: Berlin International Film Festival (Competition)
In Swiss German
136 minutes
