Höhenfeuer

(Alpine Fire)
by Fredi M. Murer
117', 35 mm, Swiss, 1985

With his film Höhenfeuer, Murer reached the height of his career in 1985, winning the Golden Pardo award at the Locarno Film Festival, and the Bronze Hugo award at the Chicago Film Festival. The film recounts the story of an incestuous relationship that takes place in an isolated cabin in the Swiss mountains.  It is here that a deaf-mute - a boy who will remain nameless throughout the entire film - lives with his parents and sister (who will become his lover).  By subtitling the film “A Love Story”, Murer takes the film beyond its tragic dimension.  The tender, familial gestures counter the dark atmosphere of a desolate mountain backdrop constantly shrouded in fog, thus creating a kind of poetry in the wild. The film treads lightly-espectful but at the same time highly critical of the social reality where isolation and marginalization heighten sexual taboos and superstition.