Die Insel

With dreamlike certainty, for three month of the year the farmers on the mountain slopes find their way to an archaic, nomadic form of life. They are taken up by a world in which everything is real, everything is visible; a world in which man, animals and the wheater must and can get along with each other ... Life here has visible forms. In a film one could explain them or let them be explained. I never considered doing this. We wanted to see and hear the melody. As Michel Stadler on the Widder Alp says, it is a melody that barely sounds any different in Nepal or Argentina. The story that John Berger recounts of Marcel from Savoy's high alps illuminates our images and tones. And the visible and audible world of the film illuminates Marcel's world, which has "only been recounted" to us. There are hidden strings within us that can still be plucked. They are the same ones that are sounded by Paul Giger in his 'alp stone' music. Sounds that come from far away and resound for a long way. Film must always remain outside. But this does not mean that it must remain external to us. THE ISLAND not only wants to tell the story of a certain form of contact, it also wants to share in this experience. Martin Schaub