View source for Reisender Krieger

{{Infobox film
| name           = Reisender Krieger
| image          =
| alt            =
| caption        =
| native_name      = <!--(for non-English films: film's name in its native language)-->
| director       = [[Christian Schocher]]
| producer       = Christian Schocher
| writer         = Christian Schocher
| screenplay     =
| story          =
| based_on       = {{based on|The Odyssey|Homer}}
| starring       = {{plainlist|
* Willy Ziegler
* Jürgen Zöller
* various amateur actors
}}
| narrator       = <!-- or: |narrators = -->
| music          = Scharlatan Quintett
| cinematography = [[Clemens Klopfenstein]]
| editing        = Christian Schocher, Franz Rickenbach
| studio         = [[Filmkollektiv Zürich]] / [[Schweizer Fernsehen]] / [[Federal Department of Home Affairs]] / [[ZDF]]<ref name="ldif" />
| distributor    = <!-- or: |distributors = -->
| released       = {{Film date|1981|8|6|television|ref1=<ref name="ldif" />|1982|3|12|cinema|ref2=<ref name="ldif" />}}
| runtime        = 195 minutes
| country        = Switzerland, Germany
| language       = [[Swiss German]]
| budget         =
| gross          = <!--(please use condensed and rounded values, e.g. "£11.6 million" not "£11,586,221")-->
}}
'''Reisender Krieger''' is a [[Cinema of Switzerland|Swiss film]] by [[Christian Schocher]]. The film depicts a week in the life of a travelling cosmetics salesman, inspired by [[Homer]]'s [[Odyssey]] and the novel [[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]] by [[James Joyce]]. A [[road movie]] with amateur actors, it was aired in 1981 in television and premiered in cinema in early 1982.
== Plot ==
This plot description follows the director's cut of 2008.
On a grey autumn morning, a middle-aged man named Krieger leaves his Swiss [[Plattenbau]] home in a housing estate called ''Wohninsel Webermühle'',<ref>Located in [[Neuenhof AG]], see: {{citation|surname1=Fabian Furter|periodical=Badener Neujahrsblätter|title="Göhner kommt". Die Grosssiedlung "Webermühle" der Generalbauunternehmung Göhner AG |volume=Bd. 85|pages=108–122|date=  2010|language=German|doi=10.5169/seals-324999}}</ref> driving a [[Citroën CX]]. Krieger visits [[Beauty salon|beauty and hair salons]], trying to sell products of the ''Blue Eye'' label, especially the ''Blue Dream'' [[Eau de Cologne]], advertising with the slogan "That's how this winter smells in Switzerland" (in [[Swiss German]]: "Eso schmeckts dä Winter i dr Schwyz"). He isn't very successful. His route leads him to [[Basel]] via [[Olten]]. In Basel, Krieger visits the autumn fair (''Basler Herbstmesse'') after having phoned his wife from the hotel room. He drinks in a bar and in a dance hall, though rather observing the night life surrounding him than taking an active part in it.
The following day Krieger drives on, into the [[Swiss Alps]]. He takes along another salesman who had his driving licence suspended. Krieger mentions to him that he was a member of the [[French Foreign Legion]]. After visiting a hair salon in a [[Graubünden]] tourist village (the woman in charge mentions that ''Blue Eye'''s eye shadow doesn't sell well), they go to a local evening event with dance music.
Another day. Krieger sleeps in his car on the side of a mountain road. A young woman walks by, he notices her and offers her a lift to [[Tenna, Switzerland|Tenna]]. Krieger is allowed to stay overnight on her parents' farm. The four of them eat "Gschwellti" (potatoes boiled in their jacket) and conduct a faltering conversation. The father is rather suspicious of Krieger and asks the daughter - in Krieger's presence - where she has "picked up that one". Krieger gives her a flask of perfume.
Krieger drives to [[Zürich]], visiting ''Blue Eye'''s office. Apparently he's looking for someone or something there, opening various doors on the floor. As Krieger argues with an employee on the floor, a big ''Blue Eye'' logo painted on a glass pane is carried to another room, followed by a photographer and female models. - Krieger goes out, into the Zürich nightlife. At a bar, a middle-aged woman offers him sex; it remains unclear whether he accepts, but in the next scene, he sits alone, smoking and drinking before a stage where an Asian female singer performs [[Strangers in the Night]]. - Another bar, Krieger smokes and drinks. A young man in a leather jacket comes in, takes a seat at a table, and starts drumming fast rhythms with his hands and feet. Krieger pays and leaves, only to notice at another bar that the young guy is there again. - Krieger dances in a disco. The drummer is also there and accompanies the rhythm with a whistle. Krieger and the drummer - his name is Jürgen - start to hit the nightlife together and become friends. In the early morning, they drunkenly talk in the ''Shopville'' subterranean shopping mall under [[Zürich Hauptbahnhof|Zürich Main Station]], telling of their lives. Jürgen mentions that his deaf stepfather had no understanding of music at all.
At the ''Blue Eye'' office, Krieger throws an empty bottle at the building. He gives Jürgen the key to the car and says "Bring me home, boy". On the way, they sing ''Somebody Loves Me''. The car vanishes in the underground parking of ''Wohninsel Webermühle''.
== Background ==
''Reisender Krieger'' was produced in the autumn of 1979,<ref name="dc">{{cite web | url=http://www.swissfilms.ch/de/film_search/filmdetails/-/id_film/2146534779 | title=Reisender Krieger - Director's Cut | accessdate=2015-09-23 | author=Christian Schocher | work=Swiss Films}}</ref> first aired on 6 August 1981 on the [[ZDF]] television channel, and premiered in cinema on 12 March 1982.<ref name="ldif">{{cite web | url=http://www.zweitausendeins.de/filmlexikon/?sucheNach=titel&wert=50973 | title=Reisender Krieger | accessdate=2015-10-16 | work=Lexikon des internationalen Films}}</ref> Shot in black and white on [[16 mm film]], the original cut had a length of 195 minutes.<ref name="sf">{{cite web| url=http://www.swissfilms.ch/de/film_search/filmdetails/-/id_film/2146533687| title=Reisender Krieger| accessdate=2015-09-23| work=Swiss Films| archive-date=2015-11-27| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151127073448/http://www.swissfilms.ch/de/film_search/filmdetails/-/id_film/2146533687| url-status=dead}}</ref> Schocher's director's cut of 2008 is at 142 minutes considerably shorter. Schocher used amateur actors; he noticed his leading actor, Willy Ziegler, at a [[Stammtisch]] in Lucerne. According to Schocher, Ziegler "just played himself".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2013_01/kultur/496376/ | title=Vom "Reisenden Krieger" und dem sterbenden Kino | accessdate=2015-10-06 | author=Marc Krebs | date=2013-01-03 | work=Tageswoche | archive-date=2014-12-27 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227143420/http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2013_01/kultur/496376/ | url-status=dead }}</ref>
In an [[Step outline|outline]] of 1978, Schocher described the film as a "staged documentary or a documentary feature film".<ref name="exp">Christian Schocher: Reisender Krieger. Exposé, included in the DVD publication, Andromeda-Film 2015.</ref> While the film follows stations and themes from the [[Odyssey]], transferring them "to our country and our civilisation",<ref name="exp"/> a large part also consists of documentary shoots, showing places and landscapes in [[German-speaking Switzerland]]. ''Reisender Krieger'' was filmed without written dialogue, without artificial light, and using just a hand-held camera. According to Schocher, the manifest [[Dogma 95]] where Danish directors made similar specifications, made him laugh: "[[Clemens Klopfenstein|Klopfenstein]] and me developed this earlier, we just didn't shout it out from the rooftops".<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.woz.ch/-58e9 | title=Von einem, der in der Enge weit ausholte  | accessdate=2015-10-05 | author=Marcel Elsener | date=2015-01-22 | work=WOZ|quote=Klopfenstein und ich haben das zuvor schon entwickelt, wir habens nur nicht an die grosse Glocke gehängt}}</ref>
The German title is ambiguous, as ''Reisender Krieger'' can be read as "Travelling salesman Krieger", but also as "Travelling Warrior". "Reisender" means specifically a travelling salesman as well as more generally one who travels, and "Krieger" is a family name, but also the German word for ''warrior''.
In 2015, the director's cut was published on DVD with German, French, and English [[Subtitle (captioning)|subtitles]].<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.andromeda.ch/reisender-krieger-dvd/ | title=Reisender Krieger | accessdate=2015-10-18 | publisher=Andromeda Film AG|language=German}}</ref>
== Themes ==
Schocher's outline mentions various counterparts for characters from the Odyssey. For example, Kriegers wife who waits at home is [[Penelope]], the Graubünden farmer's daughter stands for [[Nausicaa]], her father for [[Alcinous]] - and the drummer Jürgen is [[Telemachus]], "whom Krieger, on a booze-cruise, beholds as his own, freer mirror image, and accepts as his son for one night."<ref name="exp"/>
== Critical response ==
At the time of its first release, ''Reisender Krieger'' was reviewed positively in Swiss and German media. [[Karsten Witte]] wrote 1982 in the German newspaper ''[[Die Zeit]]'' of a "sneaky fascination" by the movie. At first, the viewer would ask where the journey is supposed to lead, but soon one couldn't get enough of the "richness of these images".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.zeit.de/1982/30/verschlagensein-in-der-verzweiflung | title=Verschlagensein in der Verzweiflung | accessdate=2015-10-05 | author=Karsten Witte | date=1982-07-23 | work=Die Zeit}}</ref> According to Witte, Schocher is "a pioneer who invents cinema anew, one who cunningly mixes magic with myth".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.zeit.de/1982/30/verschlagensein-in-der-verzweiflung | title=Verschlagensein in der Verzweiflung | accessdate=2015-10-05 | author=Karsten Witte | date=1982-07-23 | work=Die Zeit|quote=(...) ein Pionier, der das Kino noch einmal erfindet, der die Magie durchtrieben mit dem Mythos mischt}}</ref>
Also in retrospect and after publication of the director's cut, the film received a positive response. Wolfram Knorr described it in a ''[[Die Weltwoche|Weltwoche]]'' article on occasion of the 66th [[Locarno International Film Festival]] (2013) as a "masterpiece of form and fantasy about Switzerland" and as by far the best Swiss movie, which, however, didn't inspire others to follow with similar studies.<ref name="ww">{{cite web | url=http://www.weltwoche.ch/ausgaben/2013-32/es-gruesst-der-kuckuck-die-weltwoche-ausgabe-322013.html | title=Es grüsst der Kuckuck | accessdate=2015-10-05 | author=Wolfram Knorr | date=2015-01-22 | work=Die Weltwoche}}</ref>
The German ''Lexikon des internationalen Films'' attests the movie to be "excellently photographed"<ref name="ldif"/> and describes it as trying to show alienation and the inability to communicate in modern society by the example of Krieger's conduct of life.<ref name="ldif"/> In the ''Lexikon Filme im Fernsehen'' by [[Adolf Heinzlmeier]] and [[Berndt Schulz]], ''Reisender Krieger'' is described as a film "that precisely realizes the ambiguity of its title".<ref>{{citation|surname1=Adolf Heinzlmeier|surname2=Berndt Schulz|title=Lexikon Filme im Fernsehen |edition=2., erw.|publisher=Rasch und Röhring|publication-place=Hamburg|pages=675|isbn=3-89136-392-3|date=  1990|language=German}}</ref>
== References ==
<references />
== External links ==
* {{IMDb title | tt0082982 }}
* Marc Krebs: [http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2013_01/kultur/496376/ Vom «Reisenden Krieger» und dem sterbenden Kino] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227143420/http://www.tageswoche.ch/de/2013_01/kultur/496376/ |date=2014-12-27 }}, in: Tageswoche, 3.1.2013 (German)
{{authority control}}
[[Category:1981 films]]
[[Category:1980s road movies]]
<!--Swiss road movies-->
[[Category:Films set in Switzerland]]
[[Category:Swiss television films]]
[[Category:Swiss black-and-white films]]
[[Category:Swiss German-language films]]
[[Category:German-language television shows]]