Snow White (2005)

Director:

Samir

Writers:

Samir (writer)
Michael Sauter (writer)

Release Date:

19 April 2007 (South Korea)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

The life of 20-year-old Nico from upper class Zurich is all party, sex and drugs when she meets Paco...

Awards:

4 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Julie Fournier	...	Nico
Carlos Leal	...	Paco
Zoé Mikuleczky	...	Wanda (as Zoé Miku)
Stefan Gubser	...	Boris
Xaver Hutter	...	Bobby
Sunnyi Melles	...	Mutter Nico
Benedict Freitag	...	Vater Nico
Stefan Kurt	...	Theater Regisseur
Wolfram Berger
Pascal Ulli	...	Greg
Martin Rapold	...	Pfister
Patrick Rapold	...	Brandenberger
Karin Pfammatter	...	Steven
Liliana Heimberg	...	Frau Christen
Beatrice Kessler	...	Ärztin

MPAA:

Rated PG for some scary images.

Country:

Switzerland | Austria

Language:

German | Swiss German | French

Color:

Color

Certification:

Switzerland:16 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:16 (canton of Zurich) | Singapore:R21 | Germany:12 | South Korea:18

Filming Locations:

Paris, France

Company:

Dschoint Ventschr Filmproduktion AG

Love Story made in Switzerland

Snow White, in the first line, is a love story: Paco, the lead singer of a rap group from the french part of Switzerland, son of Spanish emigrants, occasionally falls in love to Nico, spoiled daughter of a swiss banker. But lots of things stand in between this predestined couple... of course the story plot line refers to the famous fairy tale "Snow White".

But the movie is far away from being just a simple fairy tale: The question the author emerges with his film is: What do you do when you finish school if you got all the possibilities in the world?! the answer is frightening: Nico does not know what to do with her life and gets more and more in the swamp of endless partys, drugs and prostitution.

What makes the movie interesting is, that it deals with different important aspects of contemporary swiss society like self-identity problems of young people (switzerland has one of the highest suicide rates), drug problems, the exchange between french and German speaking part, the immigrants etc. without rising the moral forefinger and combined with a entertaining and touching love story...

Formally interesting about the film is its technique of editing. Samir uses - as in the preceding movies - different methods of montage, especially very carefully composed sequences with split screens...

The reception of the movie in Switzerland has overall been very positive. Some bad reactions had to with the expectations: Samirs most known films have been highly intellectual documentary films about swiss and Iraqi society and culture. So for a part of "his audience" it was difficult to accept that he made an entertaining fiction film for a bigger audience... My main critique about this overall great movie is about the (too simply drawn) profile of some of the minor important characters like the parents of Nico.

Last thing to mention is the great soundtrack including severals songs composed by the brilliant main actor Carlos Leal and interpreted by him and some of the members of his former music group "Sens Unik".