Educational Media Reviews Online

A Swiss Rebel is an excellent biography of writer, journalist, and photographer Annemarie Schwarzenbach, 1908-1942. Subtitled in English, and narrated in French, Director Carol Bontstein artfully integrates archival footage, photographs, revealing interviews, and readings from Scharzenbach’s work to document the short, troubled life of this outspoken artist and social critic, who lambasted both Nazism and racist oppression in the US during the depression. Some publishers turned her “daring” pieces away.

Annemarie received a doctorate in history from the University of Zurich and connected with intellectual and bohemian circles in Berlin and Paris. She rebelled against her prestigious family’s conservative values and struggled with her mother’s possessiveness. Nonetheless, Annemarie lived openly as a lesbian and developed her journalistic voice and camera skills through adventurous travel and keen observation of social conditions. She embarked on affairs with various prominent women, such as Thomas Mann’s daughter Erika, and briefly married a gay man, Claude Clarac, a French diplomat to Iran. Throughout her life, Schwarzenbach fought depression and morphine addiction, and attempted suicide several times. Her life tragically ended in a bicycle accident at age 34.

A portion of A Swiss Rebel covers the difficult years she spent touring the Balkan countries and Afghanistan with ethnologist Ella Maillart, whom Ms. Bontstein interviews in the video. This journey was the basis of the haunting 2001 Swiss film, The Journey to Kafirstan.

A Swiss Rebel is a moving tribute to a brilliant rising star, and captures a fascinating period of history from a European perspective. Most of Annemarie Schwarzenbach’s writings are unavailable in English, so Americans are probably not familiar with her work. This documentary, however, could generate new interest. Quite interdisciplinary in nature, this video is highly recommended for academic collections.

My preview was labeled as a third-generation video, in which the color suffered some loss. However the audio was fine, including the period music which was used. Some of the subtitles were difficult to read, but not too problematic.

Awards

• Outstanding Historical Research by the Union Bank Swiss Jury, Soleur Film Festival, Switzerland, 2001
• Best Documentary, Gay and Lesbian International Film Festival of Milano and Bologna, Italy, 2001
• Audience Award for Best Documentary, Women’s Film Festival of Torino, Italy, 2002
• Best Documentary, Mixbrasil, Festival of Sexual Diversities, Brasil, 2003