The Blocher Experience

Autumn 2011. On his federal election campaign, Christoph Blocher, Switzerland’s most hated and admired party leader, travels around the country to lead his party to power. His car is the choice vantage point of the filmmaker, who tells the story from the inside, in the first person.

What can this intimacy teach us, what do all these shots in the ogre’s den tell us – all of them reminiscent of Grimms’ fairy tales as much as Citizen Kane or Shining? That Blocher is wealthy and lives isolated in his properties and his mountains. That his seemingly silent wife plays the obvious role of a malefic goad. That his political line, which claims to protect his country from fantasised external dangers, is driven by personal feelings: above all, Blocher wants to defend his wealth, his castles, his luxury life style…
Scrutinising the devil’s seduction, not without the fear and trembling that his film become unwittingly tainted, Jean-Stéphane Bron successfully meshes political relevance and cinematography. “The wolves are repopulating Europe” is the last sentence of the film and sounds as a dismal but salutary warning.
Serge Kaganski (Les Inrockuptibles, 18 February 2014)