La Guerre dans le Haut Pays (1998)

Marion Cotillard is playing Julie Bonzon
English title: War in the Highlands

Main Details

Directed by Francis Reusser
Written by Francis Reusser, Jean-Claude Carrière, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (novel)
Genre Drama / War / Romance / Historic
Theatrical Release Switzerland: 10/1998, France: 05/05/1999
DVD Release n/a

Starring Marion Cotillard, Yann Trégouët, François Marthouret, Antoine Basler

 La Guerre dans le Haut Pays
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Synopsis

Winter 1797 - 1798: Napoleonic troops, allied with Swiss revolutionaries, occupy the canton of Vaud and begin preparing for the military conquest of Bern and its vassals. Resistance to the advance of Enlightenment ideas, however, coalesces in the highlands beyond the snow-blocked passes. This clash of philosophies weighs on the romantic fate of David and Julie, who are caught up in the whirlwind of parental conflict, emotional crises, and betrayed friendships, all burdened by civil and religious traditions.

Marion Cotillard's role

Marion Cotillard plays Julie as if she were born to be her. She's the naive yet passionate young woman, running through the woods and up the mountains, seducing her boyfriend and fighting for their love. It's a shame that David often doesn't seem to be as much in love with her.

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Trivia & Facts

• Was shown at the 1999 Berlin International Film Festival.
• Was nominated for the Swiss Film Prize at the Solothurn Film Festival and was Switzerland's entry for an Oscar as Best Foreign Film - however it only got short-listed.
• This is a Swiss film, with a majority of Swiss fundings and a Swiss director, based on a novel by an important Swiss author, and telling an almost forgotten piece of Swiss history.
• It reached #4 in the list of the most successful Swiss films of 1998.

Quotes: Reviews
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Quotes: Marion Cotillard
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Personal Comments

As soon as I learned that this is a Swiss film I started finding a way to see it. It was even shot on locations that I know exactly where they are. The story takes place during one week in the late 18th century. The French Napoleonean armies approach Ormont, a small village up in the mountains. Since its inhabitants have been under Bernese occupation so far it seems that finally a new era might begin and the French Revolution might bring them freedom. Resist or welcome the armies? In the middle of all this are Julie and David, who are in love with each other. The film in my opinion is moving along to slowly for this kind of genre, and doesn't have something special about it when compared to international productions. However, it is rare that a Swiss film is filmed on such a large scale with epic dimensions. Still, the topics it deals with are as up-to-date as ever. How, in war fathers and sons may stand on directly opposite sides, how a woman renounces her husband for his ideas only to celebrate him as hero when the situation changes like the wind, how people may sacrifice so much for something which only days later is gone and how religion is being used for ones own purposes. It is a shame however that the Bernese people in the film talk German like Germans do, which is a huge difference. I, as a person living in a region that used to be a puffer zone between the French & German speaking parties back in those days, view this as a huge flaw.
by Maria



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