L’homme révolté

A striking contribution because the historical period which Michel Soutter covers coincides with his own lifetime. Soutter was, alongside Alain Tanner and Claude Goretta, one of the leading film-makers of the so-called Swiss Wave which attracted international attention in the late sixties and early seventies. These film-makers felt akin to the international alternative movement in the late sixties, a movement which was received with great hostility in middle-class and conservative Switzerland.Soutter borrowed fragments from the earlier rebellious work of his film friends, of whom Yves Yersin and Francis Reuser were less well-known outside Switzerland but should be mentioned alongside Tanner and Goretta. He was also able to make use of his own early films La lune avec les dents (1966) and Haschich (1967). Thanks to the caring and committed way Soutter chose his material, the dated films have lost nothing of their eloquence.