L'aiguilleur

Watch this movie if you're tired of explosions, car crashes, and talks. You will go to great lengths without hearing a word from thoses lunatics on the mission shown on a screen. In addition to the unpredictable events you'll also find some beautiful music and landscapes as well as several subplots that will make you scratching your head for a while.

Shot in a very desolate place, this movie tells the story of a pointsman in the middle of nowhere, and a woman that mistakenly leaves the train in that particular stop. It was shot in a full year so the film could capture the ambient and the different colours of the four seasons - Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. A very strange but at the same time very attractive movie.

I've seen De Wisselwachter for the first time about fifteen years ago, but this movie is still with me in some way, and sometimes I feel the need to see it again. The director guides us in an absurd story with an absurd background, but like in a dream, the disbelief never settles in and we are projected in the little world of the movie as it was a perfectly coherent parallel universe. The events in the storyline are scarce, but the tension is always very high, like in a well-made thriller, and the attention of the viewer never fleets.

The visuals are stunning, with no shot falling short of having a perfect composition and gorgeous colors. The sound is used sparingly - the film is nearly completely speechless and the music is used with great parsimony, only the ambient noise is always present - but with great effect. Very original and throughly enjoyable.

I understand the draw and appeal to such a different type of movie and I am a huge admirer of movies with little dialog but all the same this one absolutely terrible. I've been to the Scottish highlands and found the lack of Scottish accents in the characters disappointing. This plot was strong enough in theory but the cheap sets and lack of a single realistic character kept this film from getting off the ground. I feel the use of silence to create atmosphere only works when you have actors who can exude some sort of presence without speaking and these actors certainly cant. If you want a silent movie that captures that presence try (Le Dernier Combat). There have been very few movies that I couldn't even manage to finish and this was one of them. Absolute dribble!

Movies like this are the reason I don´t like Hollywood movies. All Stelling´s movie are simply brilliant. But who knows them. De Wisselwachter is quite, slow, with almost no dialogues. At the same time it´s very funny and full of surprises. You don´t have to think and be clutterd up with thousands of words which explain everything. You just sit and feel the atmosphere and emotions. Wonderful!!!