The Swiss film is nearly unknown on the world film market. This is especially true for the "Golden Age" of Swiss Film in the 40ies and the 50ies. Franz Schnyder's "Ueli" movies had been put already early of VHS, strangely enough in Japan, but why didn't anybody come to the idea to send the films of Switzerland's greatest film director, Kurt Früh (1915-1979), around the world? Früh's work comprises stylistically influences from Italian Neo-Realism (Bäckerei Zürrer, 1957) up to Nouvelle Vague (Dällebach Kari, 1970; Der Fall, 1972), but always remained original, scooped from the power of the director's experiences with the people from the street, the mavericks, the bums, the jerks and the freaks. All of them have been treated very well by Früh in his films - so well that the director decided to invent as an own genre "Märchenfilme" (fairy-tale films). Nevertheless one feels behind the pictures that the miracles do not only happen in order to satisfy the public, but it was the director who needed them mostly. However, in his film which he called biographical, "Dällebach Kari" (1970), there was no happy-end anymore possible. Too honest was the director which the story, because it resembled his own in several essential points. Kurt Früh's work, that is: 16 feature-long movies, a good dozen of never published early documentaries and advertisement movies, several theater pieces, novels, a small volume of poems and and also small book called "Rückblenden" (Flash-backs) in which Früh describes the development of the Swiss film, starting with the Communist "Arbeiterbühne" and ending up in the film of the early 70ies. Unfortunately, there is one single film company in Switzerland who possesses the copyrights of all Früh movies and sells them to horrific prices (about 2-3 times as much as as new US-releases). Moreover, they have refused the idea to subtitle these movies and distribute them on the international market. In this way, it is possible still in these days of the Third Millennium that a world-class director's life-work can remain practically fully unknown. This is another of many cases which are truly unique for Switzerland - but there is absolutely no reason to be proud of that.
