Das Fähnlein der sieben Aufrechten

Yeah, well. This is one of the very few Swiss films that get financed in whole by private investors, and they tried to make a modern version of the story by Gottfried Keller that brings the young Swiss folks into the cinemas. But why set the story in the middle of the 19th century??? I guess it would have been wiser to shift the plot into the present time.

This film fails because it wants to be a romance, an adventure, a drama and a comedy at the same time. Although there are elements of all these genres, there is not enough of everything to make the film what it wants to be. In the last 10 minutes it becomes clear that this film marks the return of the so-called "Heimatfilm", so in the end the film is just a piece of new Swiss Folklore.

The main characters are played by amateur actors, the male lead Fabien Rohrer being one of the best Swiss snow boarders and the female lead Kisha being one of the more successful pop starlets of the country. In smaller roles, there are also TV hosts. And this is another problem: These people try very hard, but they are just no actors... Good luck that the comedian Erich Vock has also got an important role, so he saves the film's acting to a certain degree.

All in all a woefully banal, rather embarrassing movie, even for Swiss standards.