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Beresina, or the Last Days of Switzerland (German: Beresina oder Die letzten Tage der Schweiz) is a 1999 satiric comedy film by Swiss director Daniel Schmid. It chronicles the story of Irina, a Russian call girl arriving in Switzerland, whose innocent attempt to live the high life there triggers an unintended coup d'état in the country. The title Beresina refers to the Beresinalied, a patriotic song used as the code for initiating the putsch.[1]
| Beresina, or the Last Days of Switzerland | |
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 Promotional poster | |
| Directed by | Daniel Schmid |
| Written by | Martin Suter |
| Produced by | Marcel Hoehn |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Renato Berta |
| Edited by | Daniela Roderer |
| Music by | Carl Hänggi |
Release dates |
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Running time | 108 minutes[1] |
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The film is a black comedy where all aspects of Swiss life are satirized in anecdotes. The heroine deals with a retired P-26 officer who appears as her false "sponsor" and various sexual perverts at the top of Swiss social hierarchy. Their attitudes to immigrants are also depicted ironically. Even the national identity and modern history of Switzerland are caricaturized in the country's first ever coup d'état sequences. The film culminates with Irina's coronation as Queen of Switzerland.
Beresina was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.[2] It also was selected as the Swiss entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 72nd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.
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- Yelena Panova as Irina
- Geraldine Chaplin as Charlotte De
- Martin Benrath as Alt-Divisionär Sturzenegger
- Ulrich Noethen as Dr. Alfred Waldvogel
- Iván Darvas as director Vetterli
- Marina Confalone as Benedetta Hösli
- Stefan Kurt as Claude Bürki
- Hans-Peter Korff as Nationalrat Tschanz
- Joachim Tomaschewsky as Alt Bundesrat von Gunten
- Ulrich Beck as Emil Hofer
- Ivan Desny as Rudolf Stauffacher
- Peter Simonischek as Fritz Ochsenbein
- Hilde Ziegler as Frau Vetterli
The film was praised by Variety, where Schmid "applies his wicked sense of humour", to create a "rollicking socio-political farce that roasts just about everyone in power." The review also explained how Schmid uses "black humour to expose Swiss high society as a hypocritical facade hiding secrets from money-laundering to pimping, with the banks involved in absolutely everything."[3] It was the highest-grossing Swiss film of the year, ranking 38th at the box office overall.[4]
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