Au sud des nuages

The haunting images of this film take the viewer on a journey from the Swiss mountains to China, with a lonely man who cannot speak about his pain, until the very end. How you feel about this story and about its main character will probably depend on where you come from. While some of the background and people are uniquely Swiss, the stoicism of the hero is known in many other parts of the world, mountains as well as prairies; any place where men (and women)live alone, in rural isolation, proud of their independence yet suffering from a deep loneliness that they can't even articulate to themselves.

I would like to add that this is neither a depressing film nor a slow one -- the journey moves swiftly, there are many humorous and poignant moments, and at 85 minutes, you find yourself getting to China almost too soon. And if the end is more allegorical than realistic, it has a poetic quality that I found touching and memorable.