This Swiss drama shares a similar spirit with the breezy films of ‘60s French New Wave as an exceptional Bulle Ogier plays an enigmatic woman who is the subject of two writers in this thought-provoking work about what it means to construct a person(a) through fact and fiction.
Review #2,931
Dir. Alain Tanner
1971 | Switzerland | Drama, Comedy | 125min | 1.66:1 | French
Not rated – likely to be NC16 for some sexual references
Cast: Bulle Ogier, Jean-Luc Bideau, Jacques Denis
Plot: Pierre and Paul, journalist and writer respectively, team up to write a screenplay based on the real story of a young woman accused by her uncle of trying to kill him. They decide to meet her.
Awards: Won OCIC Award – Recommendation, Forum of New Cinema (Berlinale)
Source: Tamasa Distribution
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Moderate – Fact vs. Fiction; Class Issues; Writing; Self-Consciousness
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: General Arthouse
Viewed: Le Cinema Club
Spoilers: No
I couldn’t remember when was the last time I saw a Swiss film. Maybe never ever. Thanks to Le Cinema Club, one of the best-kept secrets in curated film streaming, this was offered on their platform for much longer than their usual one-week viewing window.
What a treat The Salamander is, and although made in the early ’70s, it shares a similar spirit with those breezy films of ’60s French New Wave like Jules and Jim (1962), Band of Outsiders (1964) and Masculin Feminin (1966).
It’s less radical in form and structure, but director Alain Tanner imbues in The Salamander a sense of its characters being aware of the social contracts that they partake in as citizens of their country.
It is a more political film than its dramatic underpinnings might suggest, and while audiences could reflect on the post-May ’68 civil unrest in neighbouring France as inflected intellectually in the minds of Tanner’s characters, the film also works as a creative ‘investigation’ into the editorial workings of fact and fiction.
Pierre, a journalist, summons his writer friend, Paul, to co-write a piece on a young woman who was alleged to have shot and wounded her uncle several years ago.
“I don’t see why we need your imagination since the whole story is true.”
Although the police have closed the ‘he said, she said’ case with no clear resolution, there could be some interest in the enigma that is Rosemonde (exceptionally played by Bulle Ogier). While Paul, with his fertile mind, imagines Rosemonde, Pierre prefers to go straight to the source for research.
As such, The Salamander becomes this rather complex push-pull narrative about what it means to construct a person(a) for the public readership when truth may not necessarily be the right currency to operate.
A factory worker, and hence, a cog in the capitalistic system of exploitation, Rosemonde embeds herself in the company of the two men, who reveal to her another kind of life—still a struggle (well, how much moolah can freelance writers get anyway?) but decidedly more carefree and perhaps more introspective.
Accompanied by an arresting electric guitar-heavy score, The Salamander is amusing, sensual and thought-provoking, sometimes all at the same time.
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Eternality Tan 