Tuesday, September 10, 2019

The Little Switzerland

The film revolves around a town called Telleria, which is considered part of Castile, but is located in the Basque portion of Spain. The mayor has been trying for years to get the town recognized as Basque and accepted, but has repeatedly failed, to the annoyance of several citizens. Not to mention the citizens who just want some basic public services to be funded (I'm guessing they're far enough from Castile that they don't get much support from that end).

On the same day they are rejected by the Basque again, the mayor's son Gorka arrives in town, investigating the history of the church, and by chance, the grave of William Tell's son, Walter, is found. Tell is a Swiss national hero, so naturally, the mayor decides they should apply to become part of Switzerland. Despite being located 1400 kilometers away.

The whole thing gets increasingly absurd as the Spanish government sends an agent there to monitor the situation. He happens to be the ex-boyfriend of the lady Gorka works with. Gorka's ex-girlfriend works for the mayor, and is pushing for this whole Swiss annexation thing, because it'll be financially lucrative to be a tax shelter. Two grumpy older guys, who normally hate each other for reasons I'm not entirely clear on - I think one wants Telleria to remain Castillian, the other is pro-Basque - decide to join forces because they think this whole Swiss thing is nuts. The mayor has spent 30 years trying to get people in town to speak Basque, now he wants them to speak Swiss German.

The idea behind it is kind of funny, but it didn't make laugh. All the various relationship stuff doesn't work, because it starts in before we have a chance to care about any of them. So Gorka's mother doesn't like Yolanda and thinks he should have stayed with Nathalie. We care why, exactly?

There's also a whole subplot about the town priest have a cache of guns and explosives stashed in the church that I don't know what that was supposed to be about. He gives an explanation at some point, but I wasn't clear on whether I was supposed to believe him. He seemed like an extremely hostile guy so I didn't, but that might have been the wrong conclusion to draw.

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