Stefan Schwietert: Heimatklänge
This music documentary film is about Swiss music – the famous and for many, including me, unbearable yodel – and Swiss artists who have developed their music from the yodel into a great innovative and fascinating rythmic play with the voice. It has been released in Swiss cinemas and very right so, as it has a uniquely built visual structure that makes the three artists stand out on their own and at the same time comment each other’s achievements.
Erika Stucky is the funniest of the three, a woman who went to the US and became a performer of extraordinary power and charisma. Her family has a big film archive of super 8 film which is convincingly used in the narrative, including scenes with her, who as a child always wanted to be a hullahulla dancer. This wish was not well received in the Swiss schools!
The film has a light tone and the director is not afraid to play with the landscape and bring out the artists to express themselves in a mountain scenography. One – Christian Z. – even goes to Mongolia to meet with colleagues who also do overtone voive mastering.
How does Switzerland sound? This is what the film is about, entertainingly it is done, with a lot of information given in a spirit of joy and playfulness.
Switzerland, 2007, 81 mins.
