The motif of movement in film is a core element of Peter Mettler’s award-winning body of work: His journey here takes us from Canada via the USA to Switzerland and as far as India, the filmed moments associatively unfolding a tableau about different people. They are all, each in their own way, looking for transcendence and ecstasy. In this hypnotic trip about time and transience, the director is always ready to engage with the unexpected. His attitude is marked by curiosity and impartiality. Well over a hundred hours of footage feed into a brilliant montage in which transition and rapture also find visual and acoustic correspondences.

A short yes and a long but. A man in a plaid shirt says a friendly hello and rhapsodizes about travelling to southern countries. But when he returns, he finds those southern foreigners have been swept, yes, into Switzerland. That’s not good. Not good at all! Every sentence fires up the next. The longer his hate-rant lasts, the redder and madder the otherwise friendly plaid man grows.