Directed by: Thomas Imbach
Writing credits: Jürg Hassler, Thomas Imbach, Eva Kammerer
Cast: Beat Marti, Laura Drasbæk, Anne-Grethe Bjarup Riis & Sandra Medina
Can dreams be deliberate and intentional? Or, to make the statement clearer, can we be creative with our dreams? A sci-fi article published in the Outlook magazine (about) five years ago made a comment that the day when one can customise one's dreams, as if they were desktops of a PC, with a few gadgets is not distant. But I didn't hear it ever happen. Still, overpowering even this great mental faculty remains a tantalising possibility. As reality is almost felt as a nightmare, it's time we kept our dreams as safe cushions to protect our fantasies.
'I was a Swiss Banker' is a cinematic venture to this end. Its storyline goes like this: Roger is a banker in the sense that he banks on the money of others for a living. He transports black money across the border to reinvest them, thus becoming a successful smuggler on whom bigwigs with nefarious interest depend. He is too optimistic to believe he will be caught in the net. But when his car was blocked by customs officers to frisk him, optimism coupled with flamboyance saves him. He drives the car past the check post with an air of nonchalance. When he gets cornered by the officials in a maddening pursuit, he takes a headlong plunge to the Lake Constance, which takes him to an entirely different universe inhabited by mermaids and witches.
Heli, a rapacious witch who knows how to fly a chopper, haunts Roger in his brave new world. He puts him through a test either to ultimately release him or, if he fails, to possess him. He should meet three ladies and choose one of them as his wife. Under Heli's surveillance, he meets Laura, a professional shepherdess with all feminine qualities to cheer him up; Sahar, a Turkish girl from his home town who is also adept at wiving a man like Roger ; and Helena who is sent by her father to be a mermaid to retrieve the money from Roger. Heli felicitously watches the entire scene with the confidence that Roger will fail the test. She has worn a wedding dress in anticipation. But Helena, a link connecting him to his past as 'Swiss banker', make him drift in the water uncaught.
What is the film with all its cinematogarhpic excellence all about? As all postmodern work of art should truly do, the film leaves much space for our inference. So let me have mine.
A world withstood by machinations has implanted in our mind the desire to be surreal. A friend of mine, whenever he fell out with his wife, used to come quickly to my room to pick up whatever fairy tales there were to cheer him up. When his wife filed a divorce suit against him, he went to a bookshop and purchased the entire Harry Potter volumes. Think of him as part of a more intricate political system which we nickname liberal or neo-liberal. Escape to fantasy world could be a solution.
'Swiss bank' is an ideal metaphor. Thomas Imbach conveys the meaning that one we are tightly protected by highly protected buildings like a bank, which pretends to ensure our safety.
Also the 'was' in 'I was a Swiss banker' is a metaphor. It means only customised dreams can be the best alternative.
(Pictures: Left: Movie poster, Centre: Roger followed by Heli, Right: Thomas Imbach)
By Shameer KS
