À l'ombre de la montagne
Danielle Jaeggi
2008 - 70 min - DV Cam - Couleur - Suisse, France

A mythical site among the first sanatoriums, Davos was not spared the convulsions of History. From the peaceful years of the Belle Époque to the rise of Nazism, then through the difficult compromises with the major powers during World War Two, we learn how this environment, seemingly preserved, turned out to be a scale model of a Switzerland exposed to outside pressures. This spa resort immortalized by Thomas Mann in his "The Magic Mountain" was where socialists, Nazi dignitaries and American officers mingled in the 30s and 40s, and where concentration camp survivors and Nazi war criminals crossed paths after the war. The film explores this world through the director’s own story who, in reading her father’s letters, learns the reasons for his unbearable absences.