Laluneaveclesdents

The international cinematic new wave came bursting into the Swiss cinema through the work of Michel Soutter, whose La lune avec les dents (The Moon with Teeth) became practically a manifesto of the movement. The film follows William, thirty-ish, out of work and looking for a new life after apparently having been thrown out of his previous one. He meets up with Noelle, who seems intrigued by his restlessness – until her economist boyfriend shows up. Yet plot details do little to convey the power of the film, which lay in its capturing the anarchic texture of William’s life – a life whose lack of direction was read as a rebuke of the Swiss myth of orderliness and self-satisfaction. With his roots in documentary, Soutter excelled at creating a loose, vibrant cinema, full of quick zooms and dynamic hand-held shots, with dialogue that often alternated between outright quotations and stylized interviews. Almost completely rejected in its era, La lune avec les dents is now widely seen as a milestone for Swiss cinema.